Pan-Creationism

As I wrote my previous post, I realized it might be a good idea to reveal my view of origins. Trying to follow good journalistic practices, I have attempted to describe various views as a neutral third-party, but this can be confusing to readers who are trying to infer what I think about such a contentious issue.

I recently decided that I am, ultimately, a ‘Pan-Creationist.’ To wit, it all panned out and here we are. Before you go accusing me of copping-out, let me explain.

I believe firmly in the first five words of Genesis:  “In the beginning, God created.” After that, I WAS NOT THERE, so I don’t know.

I believe God is perfectly capable of creating the universe in six seconds, so six days isn’t a problem when it comes to His ability. Neither do I limit Him to six literal 24 hour days. It is a very interesting question, but to me it is not a doctrine on which I intend to stand or fall.

Dammit, Jim, I’m a chemist, not a Hebrew scholar, geologist, or biologist. I’ve never even taken a biochemistry course. Therefore, I do not have the technical expertise to comment with authority on the topic of origins, so I refuse to. That is not a cop-out, it is professional integrity.

I do not hold the Bible to the standards of the Journal of the American Chemical Society or similar. Given that scientific journals came thousands of years after Scripture, I don’t see modern scientific standards as being backwards compatible with ancient Hebrew literature.

As a layman who has studied the Bible for over 25 years, and as a PhD scientist who understands the scientific method and sees it as a valid and powerful method for studying the natural world, I lean at this point in the direction of progressive creation. That is, that the six days of Genesis 1 are periods of time, and creation occurred over billions of years. However, I am still open to new data and new interpretations of both the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature. I find intriguing arguments in most of the various camps from the young earthers to the theistic evolutionists, but have not found a compelling set of arguments to place me firmly at a defined position. My experience tells me that the truth of hazy things often lies somewhere between the extreme views, so I tend to gravitate there while waiting for new info.

Part of the issue goes back to my theme of agent-mechanism dichotomy. Science, as a tool of studying the natural universe is able to offer extremely limited insight on things supernatural. Therefore, I have to rely on more than science to determine if the agent of creation is God, naturalistic forces, or some other unknown force. My assessment of all the data I have, including personal experience, is that God does exist. Historical sciences like paleogeology, astronomy and evolutionary biology have the substantial limitations of not being repeatable, with no living eyewitnesses or written documents (reliable or otherwise). Thus, interpretation of the data relies on key assumptions that apparently competent professionals disagree on, largely based on whether they assume the supernatural can even exist or not. This makes definitive mechanistic determinations difficult, but not impossible.

In summary, did God do it? Yes. How? I look forward to seeing the better than blu-ray version when I reach Glory. Til then, it’s an open question.

SDG

Define Your Terms!

I got into an argument with a friend the other day over evolution. He argued that basically evolution had done nothing good for the world, and I maintained that, in spite of some questions about the ultimate accuracy of the model, it had successfully guided research into some useful discoveries. He responded that they were made using what Bacon, Newton and others had developed long before Darwin came along.

We went round and round until I realized that we were talking past each other. He was arguing against evolutionary philosophy, and I was talking strictly about the scientific theory of evolution as a mechanism. I realized that this was the agent-mechanism debacle that I keep railing about, all over again. In his mind, ‘evolution’ refers to the entire kit and kaboodle of atheistic evolutionary theory and philosophy of origins. In my mind, I see distinct separations between Darwin’s scientific theory (and subsequent derivations) and the naturalistic philosophy with which it is often paired and which tend to feed off of each other.

Therein is the confusion—to many people, Christian or otherwise, there is no separation between the scientific mechanistic theory of evolution and the naturalism prevalent among atheistic/agnostic folks. Thus, to talk about one, you are talking about the other.

Unless one recognizes that they are separate (though closely related), it can be difficult to evaluate the theory on its scientific merits or lack thereof (depending on your viewpoint). The theory says the diversity of life arose through genetic changes over time. The philosophy says therefore that God did not have any hand in getting us here and, in fact, doesn’t exist.

Thus, it is imperative to carefully define your terms in most any discussion and make sure all parties agree to them. Unfortunately, even once I realized the confusion and explained it to him, we were forced to agree to disagree, as he seemed unable or unwilling to concede my assertion that they were separable.

For those folks who are ‘theistic evolutionists,’ this is the uphill battle they face. There are all too many people on both sides like my friend who don’t see them as separable. Therefore, many Christians see them as heretics, and many naturalists see them as cheap compromisers trying to find a way to allow for their faith in the face of ‘overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.’

In nearly every field, there is at least one issue that causes bitter division. What is it in yours? Can some of the heat in the division be reduced by taking a step back, and starting from first principles, set up the definition of terms such that jumbled ideas can be separated? (Maybe this isn’t possible long term as the jumbled ideas may truly be interrelated, but is it possible to temporarily set up a separation for purposes of argument and theory refinement?)

SDG

"It's a Miracle!"

A variant of an email I once received:

“A dear old saint sat at the back of a sermon on the parting of the Red Sea where a typical liberal minister begins…
Almost immediately she stands up and cries out “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who drowned Pharaoh and the armies of Synod in the Red Sea!”.
Rather taken aback, the minister continues to outline how there was only 5cm of water at the time, etc etc. and Israel crossed across what was, technically, a shallow ford.
Not to be outdone, the saint rises again and exclaims, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who drowned Pharaoh and the armies of Synod in just 5cm of water in the Red Sea!”  (http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/26627, accessed 10/13/2010)

While current archaeological/scientific evidence tends to support the Biblical account of the event, the anecdote offers an important clue about the nature of miracles, that of the agent behind the miracle, not the mechanism of its occurrence.

Continuing the theme discussed over the last several days, (and reinforcing a recent comment to Tuesday’s post) the existence or proposal of a natural mechanism does not negate the possibility of Divine action. When in my teens, I read a Reader’s Digest article about how the explosive destruction of the volcanic Mediterranean island of Thera (aka Santorini) could easily have provided the mechanism by which the various Mosaic plagues upon Egypt, including the Red Sea crossing, could have occurred.

Thus, the naturalist says that it isn’t a miracle. Well, how then do they explain that Moses predicted the beginning and ending of each plague? I somehow doubt he had sufficient understanding of geological processes and environmental impacts at the time to recognize the volcano’s eruption and know all of those details so precisely. It seems to me that many of the miracles in the Bible are predicted to occur ahead of time as a verification of their authenticity, so that even if they do occur via a natural mechanism, the foreknowledge would still be a supernatural event, and therefore still a miracle.

It is consistent with God’s MO in the Bible to use an efficient natural/historical process to bring about complex events at precisely the right time to accomplish His purposes. What is more amazing—doing a simple series of plagues, giving Moses the power to start/stop them or using one single event to cause a cascade of discrete and varied occurrences resulting in the liberation of a nation of slaves in an orderly fashion?

I find myself kind of hoping the Reader’s Digest version is right.

SDG