Modern Christianity Archives : Page 10 of 13 : Proslogion

David Barton Needs a Fact-Checker

I recently received this video via E-MAIL. The subject line of the message was “What you won’t be taught in school.” That intrigued me, so I watched the video. It is of a man named David Barton who is leading a tour of the U.S. Capitol. According to his company’s website:

David Barton is the Founder and President of WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization that presents America’s forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious and constitutional heritage….His exhaustive research has rendered him an expert in historical and constitutional issues and he serves as a consultant to state and federal legislators, has participated in several cases at the Supreme Court, was involved in the development of the History/Social Studies standards for states such as Texas and California, and has helped produce history textbooks now used in schools across the nation.

As I listened to just the first part of the video, however, something seemed off…way off. So I decided to do a little fact-checking. Now I am not a historian, but I am able to do some investigative research. When I checked the facts on just one segment of the video, I was rather disappointed.

I don’t normally do this, but I ask that you watch the video before you read the rest of this piece. You needn’t watch the entire thing. Just watch from 0:40 to 1:26. It’s only 46 seconds of video, but it allows you to see just how wrong he is, at least in that section of the video.

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Doubt Can Aid Faith

Robert Boyle (1627 – 1691) is generally considered to be one of the founders of modern chemistry. He took the study of how matter changes out of the mystical realm of alchemy and turned it into a scientific endeavor. He is known by nearly every freshman chemistry student as the author of Boyle’s Law, which tells us how a gas behaves when its pressure changes. In addition to being a brilliant scientist, he was also a devout Christian, and he saw the pursuit of science as a way of learning more about the majesty of God. Here is how he put it:¹

“…when, in a word, by the help of anatomical knives, and the light of chymical furnaces, I study the book of nature and consult the glosses of Aristotle, Epicurus, Paracelus, Harvey, Helmont, and other learned expositors of that instructive volume, I find myself oftentimes reduced to exclaim with the Psalmist, How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all!”

Even though he was a firm believer in Christ, he was an advocate of doubt. In fact, his most famous work is a book entitled The Sceptical Chymist. In addition to his published works, he kept of series of “work diaries” in which he wrote down his daily thoughts. One of the entries reads as follows:²

He whose Faith never Doubted, may justly doubt of his Faith.

We don’t know whether this is something Boyle came up with on his own or whether he read it and thought it was worth noting in his diary. Regardless, we know it was important enough to him that he wanted to record it. This seems to indicate that Boyle thought doubt was not only a necessary part of science, but it was also a necessary part of the Christian faith.

Why am I writing about Robert Boyle and doubt? Because it relates to the results of a recent survey of college students in the United States.

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Good News for the UK

wlc — William Lane Craig (click for credit)

William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology. He has a formidable intellect, which is best on display during debates. In fact, noted atheist Sam Harris once described Craig as, “the one Christian apologist who has put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists.” It’s no wonder that when William Lane Craig announced that he wanted to have a debate during his tour of the UK, most atheists ran for the hills.

Richard Dawkins, for example, was asked to debate Dr. Craig, and he refused. When asked why, his response was:

I have always said when invited to do debates that I will be happy to debate a bishop, a cardinal, a pope, an archbishop – indeed, I have done both, but that I don’t take on creationists and I don’t take on people whose only claim to fame is that they are professional debaters. They’ve got to have to have something more than that. I’m busy.

This answer, of course, shows that his only real reason for not debating Dr. Craig is that he knows he would get destroyed in such a debate.

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Christian Educators – Heed This Survey!

I was sent a link to an interesting article written by Ruth Lukabyo of Youthworks College in Sutherland, New South Wales (Australia). In it, she reports on the results of a survey she gave to “scripture kids” in Australia. What are scripture kids, you might ask? They are children who elect to receive religious training as a part of their schooling.

In New South Wales, students in the government school system are allowed to choose whether or not to attend “special religious education” classes during the school day. These classes, commonly referred to as “scripture classes,” are not funded by the government, but they do take place during school time. The children who choose to attend them are commonly called “scripture kids.”

Well, Lukabyo decided to give 208 of these kids a survey. The children were 11-14 years of age, and since they have chosen to attend these classes, you would think that they are at least a bit more favorable to Christianity than the general public. In addition, since they have actually been attending these classes, you would think that they are better educated about Christianity than the general public. Given those two assumptions, the results are rather surprising.

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Everyone Wants A Piece of C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis is one of the greatest Christian apologists of the twentieth century. From the ripe old age of 15, he considered himself an atheist, even though he was raised in a Christian home. However, the works of George MacDonald and arguments with his friend J. R. R. Tolkien were central to his becoming a theist at the age of 31 and then a Christian at the age of 33. Because he was converted from atheism to Christianity, he has been called “the apostle to the skeptics.”¹

To give you an idea of how important his works have been to Christianity, one of his books (Mere Christianity) was voted best book of the twentieth century by Christianity Today in April of 2000. It’s not surprising, then, that people want to imply that he agrees with their point of view. After all, if one of the greatest apologists of the twentieth century agrees with you, that’s got to mean something, right?

Unfortunately, this often leads to people mischaracterizing C.S Lewis’s views. Since he wrote an enormous amount of material, it is easy to twist his words to make it sound like he believed a great many things. I have read quite a lot of his work, not so much because I am a fan of his writing, but because he is such an important voice in modern Christianity. Because of this, I get a bit offended when quotes from his work are taken out of context in order to imply that he believed something he clearly didn’t believe. I have run across two instances of this recently, from two distinctly different groups, and it bothered me both times.

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Imagine That: Richard Dawkins is Wrong About Anti-Evolutionists

Dr. James Hannam is a graduate of both Oxford and Cambridge. He earned his physics degree from Oxford, and then he went to Cambridge to earn a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science. So when it comes to science, Dr. Hannam is clearly no slouch. As I mentioned in my previous post, he has written an excellent book entitled The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. I plan to write a review of it, but that won’t happen today, because while I was doing a bit of research into Dr. Hannam, I ran across an article he wrote about a year ago. I found the article incredibly interesting, so I thought I would write about that first.

Dr. Hannam is a theistic evolutionist. Unlike many young-earth creationists, I don’t have a problem with theistic evolution. I certainly don’t think you have to give up a belief in the authority of Scripture to be a theistic evolutionist, and I don’t consider theistic evolutionists to be “compromisers.” Some of the most devout, God-honoring people I know are theistic evolutionists, and they have a very high view of Scripture. I would not be surprised if Dr. Hannam is one of those people.

The article I ran across is entitled “Debating a Young-Earth Creationist,” and it details a radio encounter between Dr. Hannam and a young-earth creationist (YEC) named Bob Enyart. Dr. Hannam specifically says that he doesn’t run into many YECs in his circles, so he was happy to have a chance to dialogue with Mr. Enyart. His report on the dialogue brought up a couple of interesting points.

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More Evidence That The Church Has Never Been United on Genesis

As I have pointed out previously, the oft-repeated claim that the church has always been united in its interpretation of the creation account is demonstrably false. It sounds reasonable to think that the church always read the creation account as historical narrative with 24-hour days, but then evolution or some other aspect of modern science “forced” theologians to reinterpret the creation account. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Even as early as 225 AD, Origen wrote:¹

For who that has understanding will suppose that the first and second and third day existed without a sun and moon and stars and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? . . . I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance and not literally.

So even in very early church, some influential people were interpreting at least parts of the creation account figuratively. It turns out that as church history progressed, a figurative interpretation of Genesis never lost its momentum.

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Homeschooling and Creationism: A Recipe for Stellar Students

I saw this story on The GeoChristian some time ago, but then I got distracted (probably by something shiny) and forgot to post about it. However, I had occasion to remember it because I got an E-MAIL from a homeschooled student regarding his first year at college. I hope to turn that E-MAIL into a separate blog post. For right now, however, I want to concentrate on the story that was originally posted at The GeoChristian.

The story is based on the most recent results of the ETS Proficiency Profile. It is a test given on 261 college campuses nationwide, and it supposedly measures the abilities of students when it comes to critical thinking, writing, reading, the humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences, and mathematics. Colleges and universities participate in the test strictly on a volunteer basis. The elite schools don’t see themselves as benefiting from the test, so Harvard, Yale, etc., do not participate. Other less rigorous schools are concerned about what the results might be, so they don’t participate, either. Nevertheless, there are enough colleges and universities participating that it allows for some reasonable gauge of the academic prowess of students on any participating campus.

I haven’t seriously looked at ETS Proficiency Profile results for quite some time, having left my university faculty position in 1996. Nevertheless, my recollection is that in general, an institution whose students have the highest overall score on the test rarely captures first place in every subcategory. Thus, a college’s students might score well enough in math, the natural sciences, and critical thinking to get first overall, but other colleges will take first prize when it comes to their students’ abilities in writing, the humanities, or the social sciences.

This year’s results, however, were a clean sweep. One college received the highest score in all categories. That college was Patrick Henry College.

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Something We Can Learn From the Harold Camping Nonsense

I am sure that you’ve probably read everything you want to read about Harold Camping and his failed prediction that the Rapture of the church would occur on May 21, 2011. However, I would like you to indulge me for just a moment, because I think his failed prediction can actually teach us something about how we Christians need to respect the Bible a bit more than we currently do.

Look at the picture of the van above. It proclaims Camping’s prediction of the coming Judgment, but note what it says on the bottom right. It says, “The Bible Guarantees It.” Now, of course, anyone who knows much about the Bible knows that it actually guarantees that no one (not even the angels) knows the hour or the day of Christ’s return (Matthew 24:36). Thus, to say that the Bible guarantees Camping’s prediction is absurd.

Unfortunately, however, many Christians make one of the the same mistakes that Harold Camping made. They may not be so Biblically illiterate as to think they can state the date of the Rapture, but they do claim the Bible says something when, in fact, the Bible doesn’t even come close to saying that.

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Dr. Karl Giberson Does Not Want You To Think For Yourself!

There is a very interesting discussion going on at Patheos. Dr. William Dembski posted part 1 of a four-part discussion with Dr. Karl Giberson. Essentially, it is Dr. Dembski’s review of The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions, a book co-written by Dr. Giberson and Dr. Francis Collins. The book’s goal is to promote theistic evolution. It claims to show that real science supports evolution and that evolution is not contrary to Christianity.

I actually agree with the second part of that statement. While there are those who think that the concept of evolution is inherently anti-Christian, I most certainly do not. Jesus tells us that we are to judge a tree by its fruit (Matthew 7:15-20), and there are many theistic evolutionists (Dr. C.S. Lewis, Dr. Alister McGrath. Dr. John Polkinghorne, and Dr. Alvin Plantinga, for example) who have produced amazing fruit for the kingdom of God. To assume that these people hold to an inherently anti-Christian idea borders on the absurd.

Where I disagree with this book is in its first statement – that evolution is supported by real science. Dr. Dembski apparently disagrees as well, judging by his review of the book. While his comments are useful, they are not what I find really interesting about this discussion. The interesting stuff comes in Dr. Giberson’s response, which is part two of the discussion.

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