Re: [asa] Dowd, Miracles, and ID-TE/ASA-List Relations

Cameron -

I respectfully decline the offer made in your closing paragraph.

I am not going to offer any lengthy defense of my own theological position here except to say that I don't cross my fingers when I say the Nicene Creed in church.
As far as adhering to "traditional" Christianity is concerned, one would of course have to ask what tradition you mean. I have no trouble with the heart of the catholic tradition, and with that of the Lutheran movement in particular. (& if there's any suspicion that I'm waffling by speaking of the heart of the Lutheran movement, I mean what Lutherans have always meant, the doctrine of justification as articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesie.) But the traditions you mention - "Thomism, Augustinianism, Lutheranism, Calvinism" - all took their final form well before anything like the modern scientific understanding of the world had developed. To adhere to any of those traditions stricto sensu requires that one's understanding of the world be frozen at the level it attained circa 1600 if not earlier. If I am to escape the wrath of the historical Luther, as you seem to think I need to do in order to be a real Lutheran, I have to believe in a young earth and 6 day creation just for a start. I refuse to blow my brains out in order to do that.

It is not just a matter of the influence of science. Theology as fides quaerens intellectum is necessarily a dynamic affair. That does not mean that everything is up for grabs. But that the traditions to which you refer themselves are results of historical development is pretty clear.

To return to science, however, I am not suggesting that science can dictate to theology. Science has theological significance only when placed within the context of God's historical revelation. (Again I refer to The Cosm,os in the Light of the Cross as my fullest treatment of this theme.) But in that context science can properly influence theology. The earth isn't 6000 years old, & while there is evidence within scripture itself that it doesn't demand a young earth chronology, it's disingenuous to pretend that we would have to the conclusion that the earth & universe are old without scientific investigation. As Pascal, that strict Augustinian, put it (in Pensées, the Provincial Letters [Random House, 1941], Eighteenth Letter) if the literal meaning of a biblical text disagrees with the certain evidence of our senses or reason, "we must interpret the Scripture, and seek out therein another sense agreeable to that sensible truth ... And as Scripture may be interpreted in different ways, whereas the testimony of the senses is uniform, we must in these matters adopt as the true interpretation of Scripture that view which corresponds with the faithful report of the senses."

Now what about criticizing ID? The first thing to say about that is that when I criticize the theology of IDers, I do it with respect to issues related to ID. I do not question whether or not they believe in the sacramental real presence or their view of invocation of the saints (both of which are dealt with by the confessional statements of my tradition). It seems to me that that's the kind of thing you're suggest that IDers could legitimately do by questioning TEs about their views on miracles.

Second, you seem to want a blanket moratorium on theological criticism of ID by TEs. Would it not be more appropriate to deal with the specific theological criticisms? One discussion of mine is http://www.ltsg.edu/db/review.htm?artid=226&issid=21 . A briefer one is http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:http://puffin.creighton.edu/NRCSE/IDTHG.html . The basis of my critique is Luther's theology of the cross.

Shalom
George
http://home.roadrunner.com/~scitheologyglm

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2009 11:09 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] Dowd, Miracles, and ID-TE/ASA-List Relations

> Ted says that it's unfair of me to ask people on the ASA list to talk more
> openly about their views on miracles unless I haul up before court, as it
> were, some famous ID people and interrogate them on the same questions,
> right here on the ASA list, for all to see. Well, I don't have subpoena
> powers over them, so I can't do that, as Ted knows. But I see his point,
> and I'll try to address his concern.
>
>
>
> Ted, my raising of the issue of disbelief in miracles on the part of certain
> TEs and certain ASA list members wasn't an end in itself, but was done to
> make a larger point. Let me explain the larger point.
>
>
>
> I don't have a private checklist of Biblical miracles that I think is
> required in order to be an orthodox Christian, still less a sincere or a
> good Christian. Nor do I think that mere credulity about miracles indicates
> any great spiritual progress of any kind. I have met people who have
> trouble believing in any miracles at all, who appear to me to be more
> Christlike in their thoughts, attitudes and behaviour, than many
> ultra-fundamentalists who take every word of the Bible literally. And my
> personal belief is that ultimately God is more interested in having us
> become like Christ than he is in making sure that we believe certain
> historical propositions. If that makes me a heretic or an infidel, well, I'll
> have to live with the label.
>
>
>
> I have raised the issue of miracles as a sort of balancing strategy, a
> retort against TEs, to level the playing field somewhat. TEs, as far as I
> can see, are constantly saying or implying that ID-Christians hold to a
> theology that is unorthodox or heretical or bad or wrong. They charge
> ID-Christians with improperly trying to investigate the hidden nature of
> God, with having an inadequate or incorrect theodicy (account of evil and
> suffering), with having a false account of divine action, with trying to
> make faith unnecessary by trying to prove the existence of God through
> reason, etc. Both Collins and Miller (Miller more savagely) have put down
> ID not only as science but *as theology* in their writings. George Murphy
> (whom I like and respect in many ways) has said some caustic things about ID
> as theology. So have several other people here.
>
>
>
> Now I have nothing against any Christian criticizing the theology of any
> other Christian. That's fair game. But the assumption underlying all the
> TE criticisms of ID is that there is a "correct" Christian theology, that
> TEs possess it, and that ID people have strayed from it. A naturally
> curious person such as myself is therefore led to inquire into the nature of
> this "correct" theology which is apparently possessed by the TEs and the TEs
> alone. And I naively assume that when this "correct" theology is examined,
> it will look like the various traditional historical theologies of
> Christendom: Thomism, Augustinianism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, etc. But
> when I look at the statements made here and elsewhere by TEs, what do I
> find? Doubts about large numbers of Biblical miracles, doubts about the
> theological truth of certain very clear Biblical statements (for example,
> the statement that God creates evil, and passages indicating that God
> sometimes overrides human free will), vagueness about God's Providence,
> speculations that God may not have foreknowledge, and many other departures
> from the theology believed by Aquinas, Augustine, Luther and Calvin, and
> found in the various Confessions of the major Churches. Also, I find an
> apparently wholehearted acceptance of modern historical-critical approaches
> to the Bible, which pre-modern Christian theologians would in many respects
> have found damnable. Overall, I find a theology which seems to owe as much
> to the Enlightenment as it does to the Bible and the classical Christian
> tradition. In other words, I find many TE interpretations of Christianity
> that would be called, in various quarters, "liberal", "unorthodox",
> "non-traditional", "heretical", etc.
>
>
>
> Now I want to be clear that I am not rendering judgement on TEs for being
> liberal, heretical, etc. I think that people should be as heretical as, in
> their judgement, truth itself requires them to be. I think that truth is
> more important than orthodoxy. However, it is a bit cheeky, to say the
> least, for those TEs who themselves hold heretical views - some of which
> would have seen them burned in Geneva or stoned in ancient Israel - to
> attack ID proponents for an inadequate Christian theology. The fact is, and
> I think Ted has already agreed to this, or would agree to this, that if we
> are looking for "orthodoxy" and "traditional belief", we will find that
> ID-Christians frequently possess it to a greater extent than TE-Christians.
> This is not to say that ID-Christians are all fully orthodox or fully
> traditional, or accept all Biblical miracle stories literally, or anything
> of the sort. But I would wager a small sum that there is less of a tendency
> to doubt Biblical statements, and less of a tendency to judge Biblical
> statements in terms of extra-Biblical criteria, and more of a tendency
> toward strict adherence to the various Confessions, etc., among
> ID-Christians than among TE-Christians. So the question arises whether
> TE-Christians are in any position to lecture ID-Christians on the inadequacy
> of their Christian theology.
>
>
>
> Thus, my foray into this question of miracles has been to expose what seems
> to be a certain hypocrisy coming from some (and notice I've said "some", not
> "all") TE proponents, whether here on this list or elsewhere. It is
> hypocrisy to pretend to be greatly concerned that ID people are veering away
> from Christian orthodoxy (the horror!), when one lives a considerable
> distance from historical Christian orthodoxy oneself. The Biblical saying
> about the mote and the beam comes to mind.
>
>
>
> For my part, I would be willing to drop the whole discussion of miracles and
> TE proponents immediately if all TEs would make the following promise: "I
> will never again criticize an ID-Christian for holding an inadequate
> Christian theology." Or, at the very least: "I will never again criticize
> an ID-Christian for holding an inadequate Christian theology, unless I am
> willing to face a rebuttal of the charge, and in that rebuttal, submit my
> own theology to the measuring-stick of traditional Christianity."
>
>
>
> Cameron.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
> To: <asa@calvin.edu>; "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 1:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Dowd, Miracles, and ID-TE/ASA-List Relations
>
>
>> Cameron,
>>
>> I just want to assure you that I am being fully honest and (IMO) fair,
>> with
>> my call for you to ask the same questions about biblical miracles to ID
>> advocates, before we get into the more theoretical issues related to this.
>> I think that many ID advocates would say that some biblical events,
>> traditionally called miracles, can actually be accounted for without
>> invoking divine "intervention." I hesitate to guess which ones, but I
>> would
>> be awfully surprised if there aren't at least some in that category that
>> people will admit to questioning. I suspect that for ID proponents, no
>> less
>> than for other Christians, the specific answers given will vary widely
>> from
>> individual to individual.
>>
>> My concern here is obvious, but I'll spell it out anyway: the pot might be
>> calling the kettle black. How many ID advocates believe that no "natural"
>> explanation can be offered for any biblical miracles? How many ID
>> advocates
>> are not fully convinced that every single miracle story in the Bible
>> refers
>> to something that actually happened, exactly as described in the Bible?
>> There are a lot of such stories, and some of them really do strike many
>> thoughtful conservative Christians as pretty fishy, esp Jonah (pun
>> intended)
>> or Joshua's long day (if taken literally as involving the real motion of
>> the
>> earth or the sun) or even the second story of Jesus feeding the multitude.
>> I emphasize here the language I chose: "not fully convinced." This
>> language
>> is not intended to be a dodge (as in "spineless" Christian scientists who
>> really don't believe the Bible at all), but only to convey the actual
>> situation: an absence of certainty or great likelihood on the part of an
>> individual believer concerning the traditional interpretation of a given
>> Biblical story.
>>
>> There is however a larger issue behind your questions (I believe), an
>> issue
>> that you did not directly raise that I would like to address now, despite
>> my
>> call for you to give some hard evidence on the "other side" (language I
>> use
>> advisedly, since the dichotomy between ID and TE is not hard and fast and
>> b/c numerous ASA members lie on both sides of that blurry boundary). The
>> issue I have in mind is that of the proverbial slippery slope, as it
>> relates
>> to evolution, miracles, God, and belief in the Bible. I believe that is
>> the
>> elephant in this particular room, and I'll show it to everyone by using
>> this
>> cartoon, which William Jennings Bryan (whose attitudes toward both
>> "Darwinism" and theistic evolution were virtually indistinguishable from
>> those of Phil Johnson today) conceived and cartoonist E.J. Pace carried
>> out:
>>
>> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Descent_of_the_Modernists,_E._J._Pace,_Christian_Cartoons,_1922.jpg
>>
>> (Incidentally, the information about the date of this cartoon on the web
>> site is not accurate. It is not found in the collection, "Christian
>> Cartoons," and the letter in which Bryan first mentioned the idea of this
>> image was written in 1924, the same year in which the cartoon was first
>> published. Pace also drew another cartoon that fully embodies the
>> criticisms that ID advocates make about MN, but it's not available on the
>> web. I recently published an essay about Pace's cartoons that can be sent
>> to individual inquirers.)
>>
>> My commentary, relative to this thread, is as follows, Cameron. Assuming
>> your description is accurate (and I think it may be), many ID proponents
>> share Bryan's fear that questioning the literalness of certain biblical
>> stories will lead inevitably to atheism, or at least to agnosticism or
>> else
>> to a form of liberal Christianity (if one could even call it Christianity)
>> that does not uphold the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I also suspect
>> that
>> those same folks share Bryan' view, mentioned by Bryan explicitly as the
>> thinking behind this cartoon, that "evolution" is "the cause of modernism
>> and the progressive elimination of the vital truths of the Bible," to
>> quote
>> the letter he wrote to the editor of the Sunday School Times (Pace's
>> employer).
>>
>> For me as an historian of religion and science, it's important to point
>> out
>> that in Bryan's day there really did appear to be "no stopping place," as
>> he
>> put it, from the top to the bottom, despite his own use of the word "step"
>> and Pace's use of steps in the visual image. There were in Bryan's day no
>> leading scientists I can think of, who stopped anywhere above the very
>> liberal type of religious belief I just mentioned; there was no one out
>> there on the landscape like John Polkinghorne, Owen Gingerich, Ian
>> Hutchinson, Francis Collins, Brian Heap, Bill Phillips, George Ellis, ...
>> I'm going to stop typing, but my brain keeps giving me names.
>>
>> The landscape today is different, in other words, but the YECs and Mr
>> Dawkins don't want you to believe that it is. Some ID proponents have
>> acknowledged this point to me privately, but publicly there seems to be
>> considerable reluctance to admit its significance. I'll leave that to one
>> side for now. My main point remains: the conversations you've had with ID
>> proponents appear to have been influenced substantially by the concerns
>> raised here. To which I would say two things. First, there might well be
>> stopping places, and some of them might be occupied by pretty serious
>> people
>> who are not the kinds of "modernists" that Bryan repudiated and that
>> Johnson
>> and O'Leary seem to think all TEs really are, in their hearts of hearts.
>> Second, my suspicion is that there are more ID proponents standing on some
>> of those steps than you may presently realize, but we're likely to know
>> that
>> reliably only if they speak up. Alas, as Johnson said early in the
>> history
>> of ID, the first thing we have to do is to get the Bible out of the
>> conversation. You can do the math, Cameron.
>>
>> Ted
>>
>> ps. I'm serious about the "intervention" conversation. I am not at all
>> reluctant to talk about that term and why it's scrupulously avoided by
>> some
>> TEs, but I won't talk about that until we have some first-person answers
>> to
>> your questions about the Bible from some ID advocates.
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
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Received on Sat Apr 25 19:13:08 2009