Category: Modern Christianity

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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Modern Science Is a Product of Christianity

I received an E-MAIL from a student a few days ago. He had just finished Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s book, The Grand Design, in which the authors claim that God is not necessary in order to explain the universe. While I have not read the book yet, reviews (even from non-Christian sources) are far from flattering.

The student informed me that Hawking and Mlodinow credit the Ionian Greeks with the discovery of natural laws. This confused him, because in my book, Exploring Creation with General Science, I make it very clear that modern science was born out of Christianity. This is because the concept that nature operates according to strict laws is a natural consequence of the fact that it was created by a Supreme Lawgiver. Without the concept of a law-giving Creator, there would have been no reason to search for natural laws. Indeed, as Dr. Stanley Jaki tells us:1

…the Christian belief in the Creator allowed a breakthrough in thinking about nature. Only a truly transcendental Creator could be thought of as being powerful enough to create a nature with autonomous laws

The search for the laws that govern nature was inspired by Christianity, and as a result, modern science is a product of Christianity.

So what of the Ionian Greeks? Did they do something related to natural laws? Not really. They did do something related to science, however, and their contribution should not be downplayed. Nevertheless, it needs to be put in the proper context.

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The Southeast Homeschool Convention

The Southeast Homeschool Convention is now over, and I am back home. It was an excellent convention, as I have come to expect from the organization that arranged it. There were well over 2,000 families in attendance, and the talks I gave were incredibly well attended. I signed lots of students’ books (something I truly love to do) and met all sorts of impressive homeschooled students and homeschooling parents. I also posed for lots of pictures with students, which is something else I love to do.

I wanted to address two questions I got at this conference: one dealing with homeschooling at the high school level, and one dealing with theology.

During my talk ‘Teaching’ High School at Home, a parent asked about AP and/or CLEP tests – the tests that are often used by students to get college credits without actually taking college courses. The parent wanted to know if it is a good idea to take such tests, and if so, does it matter whether one uses AP or CLEP? The first thing I told the parent is that AP or CLEP exams are always a good idea, if you can afford the fee ($87 for the AP and $122 for the CLEP). If the student does poorly, which is rare among homeschooled students, you can simply not report the results to anyone. However, if the student does well, it strengthens your high school transcript. If you can list “Chemistry” on the student’s transcript and note that the student got a “4” on the AP (the second highest grade possible), it will go a long way towards convincing the evaluator that the student had an excellent chemistry course.

Now you need to realize that AP and CLEP tests are college-level tests, so your high school course in the subject needs to be very rigorous if the student is to have any hope of passing. I wouldn’t waste my money on an AP or CLEP test unless the student had a serious course in the subject. This brings me to the difference between the AP and the CLEP: Both test whether or not you know a subject at the college level, but the CLEP is an easier test. Thus, it is easier to get a good grade on the CLEP than it is to get a good grade on the AP. Why not just take the CLEP, then? Because since the CLEP is easier, it is not highly regarded by some colleges. There are many colleges that will give a student credit for a good score on the AP, but they won’t give the student credit for a good score on the CLEP. Thus, if you want to use the CLEP to get some college credit without taking the college classes, you need to make sure the college you are interested in accepts the CLEP.

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Dr. Enns Offers Me a New Biblical Insight

An Overview of the Bible


Now that the Southeast Homeschool Convention is over, I am headed back home. Before I start my trip, however, I want to briefly share a new Biblical insight I received from Dr. Peter Enns. I went to his talk entitled, “What Is the Bible, Anyway (and what do we do with it)?” Dr. Enns started his talk with several different ways that Christians tend to read the Bible. For example, he said that many Christians read the Bible as an “owner’s manual” for life. They look for specific “rules” in the Bible that apply to specific situations in their lives. While there is validity to that view, it tends to concentrate on the details you find in the Bible, missing the Bible’s big picture. He went through several other ways that Christians tend to read the Bible, and while they all have validity, they all suffer from the same weakness – they miss the big picture of the Bible.

I have to admit that I have always concentrated on the details of the Bible. I think it has to do with my scientific training. I tend to focus on the details, as that is where I tend to find the data I need as a scientist. As a result, I never had the big picture of the Bible in mind. Dr. Enns provided it for me.

He said that if you really think about the Bible from beginning to end, it is split into four basic sections, listed in the diagram above. The Bible starts with creation and the curse. God created a magnificent world that was “very good.” It was not perfect, but it was very good. Then the Fall happened, which brought on the curse. The rest of the Old Testament contains the details of the nation of Israel, whose entire purpose was to bring us Jesus, Who would be able to bring us back to God. Most of the New Testament deals with Jesus, His work, and how we are to follow Him. The last two chapters of the New Testament (Revelation 21-22) tell us about the new heaven and new earth, which include a new Eden. In other words, by the end of the story, we are back where we started – we are back in Eden. He said if you think about the Bible this way, you find:

The Bible is God’s grand story, and the main point of that story is to tell us the lengths to which He will go in order to bring us back to him.

What a wonderful way to think about the Bible’s big picture. Thank you, Dr. Enns!

Dr. Peter Enns on the “Dark Side” of the Old Testament

Dr. Peter Enns
I am currently at the Southeast Homeschool convention in Greenville, South Carolina. It is a wonderful experience. The conference is very well attended, and I have spoken to many, many homeschoolers over the past day and a half. The most amazing thing for me is speaking to the homeschooled students who have come to the convention. It is incredible to see what God is doing in their lives. Some of the most impressive people I have met in my entire life are homeschooled students!

As I noted in my previous post, I was excited to see that Dr. Peter Enns is a speaker at this convention. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend his first talk, as it conflicted with a talk that I was giving. However, I was able to attend his second talk, and I was very glad that I did. While I had read some of his work (most notably Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament), I had never seen him in person. It will probably come to a surprise to some of the commenters on my previous post that he did not have horns growing out of his head or any sign of a red tail (as far as I could see). Instead, he came across as an incredibly humble man of God who has a genuine love for the Word.

The title of his talk was “The Dark Side of the Old Testament and What We Must Learn from it.” He said that an alternative title was, “Struggling with your faith (and what God is teaching you through it).” It was a down-to-earth, encouraging talk about those times in your Christian life when your faith is tested.

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An Opportunity for Critical Thinking!

The Southeast Homeschool Convention begins tomorrow, and I have six talks to give. I am excited to go, because the convention is organized by the same group that did the Midsouth Homeschool Convention two weeks ago, and it was a great success. My excitement partially gave way to disappointment, however, when I read Ken Ham’s blog entry from yesterday. Mr. Ham is a speaker at the same convention, but he is obviously upset at the fact that someone who disagrees with him will be speaking at the same venue.

He starts off his blog this way:

Sadly, one of the speakers also listed to give presentations does not believe in a historical Adam or historical Fall (he will also be promoting his “Bible” curriculum for homeschoolers). In fact, what he teaches about Genesis is not just compromising Genesis with evolution, it is outright liberal theology that totally undermines the authority of the Word of God. It is an attack on the Word—on Christ.

Then he gets really nasty. He claims that the speaker, Dr. Peter Enns, doesn’t have a Biblical view of the inspiration of Scripture and that his approach to Genesis and Romans will shock people.

Since Mr. Ham has decided to rip into a well-educated scholar with a publication list that includes such important journals as the Westminster Theological Journal and the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, I thought it only right for another young-earth creationist (yours truly) to offer a different view.

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Alvin Plantinga on Divine Action and Science

In my two previous posts, I reported on a lecture series given at Taylor University by world-renowned philosopher Dr. Alvin C. Plantinga. In this post, I want to discuss his final lecture, which was, by far, the most interesting of the three.

As was the case with his other two lectures, Dr. Plantinga began with a couple of funny stories. He then jumped into the topic at hand, which is how science should deal with divine action in the world. Not surprisingly, there are many who think that any consideration of God taking action in this world is an assault on science. For example, he quoted Dr. H. Allen Orr, a professor of Biology at my alma mater (The University of Rochester), as saying:

It’s not that some sects of one religion invoke miracles, but that many sects of many religions do…I agree of course that no sensible scientist can tolerate such exceptionalism with respect to the laws of nature.

Surprisingly, enough, however, there are many theologians who have the same view. Dr. Plantinga noted that Rudolf Karl Bultmann (a Lutheran theologian), John Macquarrie (an Anglican theologian), and Langdon Brown Gilkey (an American Protestant theologian) all agree that modern science forbids God to do any miraculous works. As Dr. Plantinga noted, these theologians believe that since God put the natural laws in place, even He cannot break them.

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Alvin Plantinga on The City of Man

Dr. Alvin Plantinga speaking at Taylor University
As I mentioned in my previous post, Dr. Alvin C. Plantinga spoke at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, and I attended his lectures. His first talk, which I discussed in my previous post, dealt with the superficial conflict between science and Christianity. His second talk, entitled, “Truth and Worldviews,” was even more interesting.

As you would expect from such a towering intellect, Dr. Plantinga dealt with this topic in a rigorous, intellectually-honest way. That’s refreshing, because “worldview” is a buzzword in Christianity today, and unfortunately, it is typically used as an excuse to try to brainwash children. Rather than dealing honestly with competing worldviews, most Christian books and organizations that deal with the worldview issue typically give dishonest, ridiculously simplified explanations of other worldviews and then show how vastly superior the Christian worldview is. While this has a visceral appeal to Christians in the short term, it ends up doing long-term harm to the cause of Christ. After all, when those who have been indoctrinated this way end up experiencing real people who have differing worldviews, they find that what they have been taught is nonsense. They realize that you can be a reasonable, good person and believe quite differently from what they have been taught, and this often calls into question everything they have been taught, including the reality of Christianity. Dr. Plantinga certainly didn’t treat other worldviews in such a God-dishonoring manner.

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Dr. Alvin Plantinga on Science and Christianity

Alvin Plantinga, a thoroughly brilliant and thoroughly enjoyable man.
Dr. Alvin C. Plantinga is arguably the most important Christian philosopher alive today. Best known for his works in epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics, he is widely credited for the revitalization of Christian philosophy that took place in the mid-to-late 1900s. Indeed, a 1980 Time Magazine article reported on the remarkable resurgence that had occurred in religious philosophy and gave Plantinga the lion’s share of the credit for it, calling him “America’s leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God.” Thanks to a member of my church, I found out that he would be lecturing at Taylor University, which is only about 35 minutes from my home. I was incredibly excited to hear such an amazing servant of God, and he certainly didn’t disappoint.

His first talk was entitled, “Science and Religion: Where the Conflict Really Lies.” He started his lecture with several witticisms. For example, many people are surprised to learn that although he is a Protestant, he is currently on the faculty at the University of Notre Dame, a Roman Catholic institution. He says many people wonder why he left his faculty position at Calvin College to go to Notre Dame. “It’s actually quite simple,” he said, “I wanted to become Pope, and there has never been a pope from any university with the name Calvin.” He said he thought it would be fun to be the first Protestant Pope, and the University of Notre Dame would help him get closer to that goal. But he said he quickly found out that “becoming Pope is harder than you might think,” so his dream is still not realized.

I actually think I understand why Dr. Plantinga went from a Calvinist college to a Roman Catholic university. Like all deep thinkers, he understands that in order to be truly educated, we must look at issues from a variety of perspectives. I think part of the reason he ended up as a Protestant philosopher at a Roman Catholic university was so that he could see various aspects of Christian philosophy from a different perspective. I find that quite laudable.

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Let’s Break Off This Engagement!

Creation Made Free: Open Theology Engaging Science is an attempt by open theism to grapple with the issues of creation, evolution, and the scientific process. It contains many chapters, each authored by a well-known voice in modern Christendom. If you have read my blog from its early days, you know that I am sympathetic to open theism. I am not an open theist, but I certainly think that open theism takes the Bible more seriously than most other theologies in modern Christendom. I also think open theologians have displayed some truly original thinking when it comes to understanding many Biblical passages that most Christian theologies would rather ignore. Thus, I was excited to get the chance to read this book on my vacation. Unfortunately, my excitement quickly gave way to disappointment.

When it comes to the issue of origins, this book takes a theistic evolutionary position. Now I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. While it is a very weak scientific position to take, a Biblical argument can be made for it. I consider that argument to be rather poor, but not as poor as the scientific argument. Nevertheless, theistic evolution itself doesn’t bother me all that much.

Here’s the source of my disappointment: There are some wonderful ways that Christians have addressed the origins issue throughout the history of Christendom. However, this book shows that the same people who demonstrate incredible originality of thought when it comes to theology and philosophy subscribe to the most mundane, worn-out modern view of origins: that God “set everything up,” and evolution then took care of the rest.

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