Re: Romans 1:20-23 and "evidence for God"

----- Original Message -----
From: "Loren Haarsma" <lhaarsma@calvin.edu>
To: "_American Sci Affil" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 4:44 PM
Subject: Romans 1:20-23 and "evidence for God"

>
>
> "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his
> eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood
> from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although
> they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him,
> but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
> Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the
> glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and
> birds and animals and reptiles." (Romans 1:20-23, NIV)
>
>
> I've read several arguments, based on Romans 1:20, that we ought to
> find strong evidence (scientific, rational evidence) for God's existence
> in nature. These arguments are typically aimed against the theory of
> biological evolution. But if we look at verse 20 in its context
> (especially verse 23), and consider the apostle Paul's historical and
> cultural context, I think the passage has a different application to
> modern times.
>
> The cultural context: Paul was not primarily concerned with
> naturalistic atheism. While there may have been a few Greek philosophers
> who believed in naturalistic atheism, the predominant beliefs around
> Paul's time were pantheistic idolatry (verse 23).
>
> One definition of idolatry is: taking some element of creation and
> worshiping (basing one's life and hopes) around it rather than the
> Creator. The gods of pantheism were personifications of parts of creation
> (the sun, the moon, the sea, animals) or aspects of the natural order
> (death, fertility, the seasons). I think that Paul is saying here that it
> is a fundamental flaw in human beings that, apart from God's grace, we
> tend to make idols out of parts of creation rather than worshiping the
> creator.
>
> In light of this cultural context, how does this passage apply to
> modern day naturalistic atheism? Well, there is one sense in which
> naturalistic atheism turns a portion of creation into an idol. In this
> case it is the regularity of natural laws, the regularity of natural
> cause-and-effect, which has become an idol. Rather than attributing this
> regularity to the Creator's faithful governance -- and giving God the
> glory -- some people base their whole world-views, and invest their hopes
> for the future, in the regularity of natural laws and our abilities to
> understand them. In this sense, naturalistic atheism has something
> fundamentally in common with ancient polytheism. I think this is an
> appropriate modern application of Romans 1:20-23.
>
> What does this imply for biological evolution? Scientifically:
> nothing. Religiously: everything. When people study biological history,
> they are not wrong to see regular patterns of natural cause and effect,
> for those patterns are there. The religious mistake of naturalistic
> atheists is not that they fail to see scientific evidence for God's
> miraculous interventions in natural laws. Rather, their religious mistake
> is to take one aspect of the created world -- the regular pattern of
> natural cause and effect -- and make an idol out of it, rather than
> praising the Creator for it.
>
> Note: I'm not saying that this passage "proves" evolutionary creation.
> I'm only saying that this passage, interpreted in its historical context,
> gives no preference for progressive creation over evolutionary creation.

The passage has a broader application as well. The Intelligent Designer
whose existence is supposedly inferred
from observation of the world can easily be an idol.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Tue Jul 19 17:11:29 2005