I have no intention of attacking Wells personally, anymore than I would a
person of any faith or a nontheist. Similarly, Wells theological beliefs
are completely irrelevant to the validity or lack of validity of his
scientific claims and arguments which must stand or fall on their own
merits.
However, Wells writings are published by evangelical Christian publishers,
and promoted by evangelical parachurch organizations such as IVCF and
Campus Crusade. He is accepted as a respected spokesperson of evangelical
Christians, and his activities are supported by evangelical churches. As
long as Wells' association is not widely known, this is plainly deceptive
and ultimately damaging to the gospel. I am not doing this lightly, I
believe it is of grave importance. I have a very strong belief in the
unity of the Body of Christ, however Unification theology is in conflict
with the foundational historical doctrines of the Christian faith. It
denies the very core of Christian faith - that of the centrality of the
cross, and the purpose of the incarnation. It cannot be by any stretch
considered a Christian faith.
Please take seriously these concerns.
In Christ,
Keith
__________________________________________________________
Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D.
by Jonathan Wells, Ph.D.-Berkeley, CA
At the end of the Washington Monument rally in September, 1976, I was
admitted to the second entering class at Unification Theological Seminary.
During the next two years, I took a long prayer walk every evening. I asked
God what He wanted me to do with my life, and the answer came not only
through my prayers, but also through Father's many talks to us, and through
my studies. Father encouraged us to set our sights high and accomplish great
things.
He also spoke out against the evils in the world; among them, he frequently
criticized Darwin's theory that living things originated without God's
purposeful, creative activity. My studies included modern theologians who
took Darwinism for granted and thus saw no room for God's involvement in
nature or history; in the process, they re- interpreted the fall, the
incarnation, and even God as products of human imagination.
Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote
my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists
had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me
(along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program
in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.
(Introduction of essay posted at
<http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm>)
____________________________________________________________________
Evolution by Design
By Jonathan Wells
By shifting the evolutionary paradigm from one that rejects design
to one that accepts it, scientists could explain various
observations that Darwinian theory has difficulty accounting for.
Jonathan Wells holds doctorates in both biology (Berkeley) and
theology (Yale). He is currently a postdoctoral research biologist
in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of
California, Berkeley, and a fellow of the Discovery Institute in
Seattle.
Adapted with permission from the International Conference on the
Unity of the Sciences. The original of this paper was presented at
the Twenty-first International Conference on the Unity of the
Sciences, which met in Washington, D.C., in November 1997.
Before the twentieth century, most Western scientists believed that God
created living things by design. Belief in God was part of the very fabric
of Western civilization; and by viewing the world through the spectacles of
faith, people saw it as God's handiwork. In the words of John Henry Newman,
"I believe in design because I believe in God; not in a God because I see
design."
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, some thinkers reversed
the traditional logic to argue from design to God's existence. William Paley
wrote in Natural Theology (1802) that someone crossing a heath and finding a
watch would see that "its several parts are framed and put together for a
purpose" and would conclude that it had been designed by a watchmaker.
Analogously, Paley argued, one could conclude that living things are
designed by God.
This essay introduction was taken from
<http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/nat-select.htm>
__________________________________________________________________________
Marriage and the Family: Fall and Restoration
by Jonathan Wells
"This is the second and last excerpt from a paper presented in the
"Marriage and Family" seminar sponsored by the International
Religious Foundation in Seoul, August 1991."
Obviously, however, the present world is not the Kingdom of Heaven.
Unification theology attributes the disparity between ideal and reality to
the fall of our original ancestors, who are called Adam and Eve in the
Bible. According to Divine Principle, God gave Adam and Eve a commandment to
guide their conduct during a period of growth; if they had succeeded in
following that commandment, they would have fulfilled the First Blessing of
individual perfection, and been ready for the Second Blessing of marriage
and family. In other words, Adam and Eve were born sinless, but were not yet
perfect. (DP, 72-75)
As interpreted by Unification theology, the biblical commandment not to eat
of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil meant that Adam and
Eve were to abstain from sexual love until fulfilling the First Blessing. So
interpreted, the biblical story recounts how Eve succumbed to temptation by
engaging in a spiritual but nevertheless sexual relationship with her
archangelic guardian, Lucifer.
Overcome with guilt, Eve then went to Adam who, instead of resisting
temptation and guiding her back to her rightful relationship with God,
engaged in a premature sexual relationship with her and thereby consummated
the fall. The original ideal had been for Adam and Eve (God's children) to
have dominion over Lucifer (God's servant). Instead, they submitted to
Lucifer's dominion, who thereby became Satan, the usurper of God's place in
the four position foundation and thus (according to St. Paul) "the god of
this world." (DP, 66-83. See also Wells, "Some Reflections on the
Unification Account of the Fall," 63-67.)
Original sin
This perversion of the originally intended four position foundation
constitutes "original sin" in Unification theology. In one sense, the
descendants of Adam and Eve are the children of Satan, though fallen people
are not totally cut off from their Creator but are caught in a "midway
position" between God and Satan.
This intolerable situation presents God with a dilemma: it was produced by
the misuse of the very free will that enables us potentially to become God's
children; by acting unilaterally to solve the problem God would deprive us
of that potential and render the purpose of creation forever unattainable;
therefore it is up to us to follow God's direction freely; but people with
original sin are unable to direct their actions completely in accordance
with God's direction. According to Divine Principle, the solution is
"indemnity", which implies partial payment: fallen people, though unable to
fulfill their responsibility completely, can freely make certain conditional
offerings which God then uses as a foundation for restoration.
This does not mean that restoration is made easy! Indemnity usually entails
persevering through difficulties and suffering to fulfill the conditions God
prescribes. The biblical stories of Cain and Abel, Noah and his family,
Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob and Esau are regarded as a history of
restoration by indemnity. On this foundation, God was eventually able to
send Moses and Jesus: Moses came to lead his people out of worldly slavery,
and Jesus came to lead them (and through them the entire world) out of
Satanic slavery. (DP, 83-97, 222-342)
Jesus' mission was (to borrow Irenaeus' word) the recapitulation of Adam:
Jesus came as the second Adam to succeed where the first Adam had failed,
and to become the True Parent of a restored humanity. In other words, Jesus
had a dual responsibility: not only did he have to fulfill the Three
Blessings, but he also had to separate the fallen descendants of Adam and
Eve from Satan and restore them to God's dominion. Just as Adam and Eve had
a choice, however, and chose wrongly, so the people who lived at the time of
Jesus misunderstood him and rejected him.
Even the few who really followed him fell into faithlessness at the end and
deserted him in his hour of need. So Jesus was prevented both from
fulfilling the Second Blessing and from completing the work of restoration
which he had begun. Instead, he had to go the way of the cross and thereby
lay a foundation for the second coming. (DP, 205-18, 342-371. On Jesus' dual
mission to fulfill the original ideal and restore the fallen world, see
Jonathan Wells, "Unification Christology," in Frank Flinn [ed.],
"Christology: The Center and the Periphery" [New York: Paragon House, 1989],
46-47.)
Second coming
According to Divine Principle, we are now living in the days of the second
coming. The book interprets eschatological passages in the Bible to mean
that the second coming of the savior will be similar to the first: like
Jesus, he will be born fully human, have to grow to perfection, and run the
risk of being rejected. He will not, however, be Jesus of Nazareth, but will
come with a new name, to complete that which was left unfinished by Jesus'
premature death on the cross.
Divine Principle also uses a variety of arguments to persuade the reader
that the savior will be born in Korea during the first half of this century.
Although the book does not explicitly identify anyone as the second coming
of Christ, its introduction contains the following statement: "With the
fullness of time, God has sent His messenger to resolve the fundamental
questions of life and the universe. his name is Sun Myung Moon." (DP, 16,
113-119, 129-136, 405-536)
Born in 1920 to a family of devout Korean Presbyterians, Sun Myung Moon had
a vision at the age of sixteen in which Jesus appeared and commissioned him
to complete the work of salvation left unfinished two thousand years
earlier. After nine years of study and prayer, Moon began teaching and
gathering followers, and in 1954 founded the Holy Spirit Association for the
Unification of World Christianity (now popularly known as the Unification
Church).
Taken from webpage at
<http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/MARRGE2.htm>
See also:
<http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/MARRGE3.htm>)
_____________________________________________________________________________
Keith:
First, it is true that Jonathan Wells is a member of the Unification
Church, and this fact has never been "hidden."
Second, the Wedge (including the Discovery Institute) is an intellectual
movement, not a church or confessional movement. We have no faith
statement or religious requirement. Our objective is to bring before the
literate public significant questions which are presently suppressed by the
cultural power of the scientific materialist establishment, aided as it is
by theistic evolutionists such as yourself. We welcome participation by
all qualified persons who want to make it possible to follow the scientific
evidence where it leads, rather than being restricted by the dictates of
methodological naturalism. For example, any Moslem or Mormon would also be
welcome to make an intellectual contribution to the scientific and
philosophical debate -- especially if he or she were as capable as Jonathan
Wells.
Third, this personal attack strikes me as an act of desperation. Why don't
you start thinking about the issues raised by Jonathan's excellent
scientific publications, instead of grasping for some further excuse for
ignoring the evidence for intelligent design in biology? Those papers are
available at the ARN web site, www.arn.org
Finally, your threat to publish what is already widely known brings to mind
what the Duke of Wellington said to a lady who threatened to publish his
amorous correspondence. You can look it up. And please do publish this
message with your own.
Phillip Johnson
____________________________________________________________________________
Keith B. Miller
Department of Geology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506
kbmill@ksu.ksu.edu
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/