Two Arguments against Neo-Darwinism

Although I accept evolution on a limited scale (for example, as an explanation of the different races of human beings), I don’t find the scientific evidence for naturalistic evolution as an explanation of all life on Earth compelling.  I think there are theological and philosophical objections that can (and should) be raised against this theory, but I think that some of the best arguments against it come from within the field of science itself. Here’s a succinct expression of my two main scientific objections to neo-Darwinism.

1) The fossil record

Why are there so few transitional life forms in the fossil record? Darwin himself admitted that this was a problem, but he attributed it to imperfections in the fossil record, and thought that more transitional life forms would be discovered after his death. Here is one quote from The Origen of Species: “Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.” Another century and a half of digging up fossils, however, has not vindicated Darwin’s claims. On the contrary, at several stages the geological record points to the sudden appearance of already diverse, complicated life forms (e.g., the Cambrian explosion).  In my opinion, theories such as punctuated equilibrium which attempt to explain the lack of sufficient numbers of transitional fossils raise more questions than they answer.

2) The problems of leaps

Purely natural processes cannot explain the origin of life itself, or the development of “irreducibly complex” systems such as the eye or the cell.  Darwin thought the cell was relatively simple, but today we know that it is incredibly complex, needing all of its various components in order to function at all.  If it loses any one of its components, the entire cell shuts down and has no survival value.  How can such an intricate, inter-connected system come together gradually and by blind chance?  How do you get from non-intelligence to intelligence by exclusively naturalistic forces?  I think it takes a lot more blind faith to believe that it all happened by chance than to posit an Intelligent Designer.

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Reflections on the Trinity (2)

I want to return to something I referred to in my last post (and have written about elsewhere), namely, my struggle with this doctrine during college. I found the Trinity difficult because it just seemed too strange to be plausible. Also, it seemed arbitrary – why three? If God has existed from all eternity past as a community of persons, why not four, or forty?

What has been most helpful to me on this doctrine is the theology of Karl Barth, particularly his doctrine of the “infinite qualitative distinction between God and man.” In referring to Barth I am not endorsing his theology wholesale – there is so much in it that I do not understand, and some things I find perplexing (for example, his doctrine of election). Nevertheless, Barth’s Commentary on Romans, with all its emphasis on God as “wholly other,” forced me to think through the distinction between creature and Creator more deeply than I ever had before. I soon realized that whatever problems existed in my mind about the Trinity must be subsumed under this distinction (I think other difficult doctrines such as God’s sovereignty and human responsibility should also be understood in light of it). Since God is infinite, and I am finite, I am totally dependent upon revelation in order to know Him properly. Trying to figure out God by finite speculation is no less impossible than trying to count to infinity by finite successive addition. No matter how long you count, you will still be an infinite distance away from your goal! I was reading a book about Barth by a guy named Bromiley, and I ran across this quote which summed up what I was thinking perfectly. “The problem of mathmatical triunity is a false problem, since we are here dealing, not with our world, but with God, in relation to whom we are wholly dependent on what God has revealed concerning Himself.”

The best analogy that I have heard for this distinction (though no analogy is perfect) is that of an author and his story. The characters in the story stand in a different relationship to the author of the story than they do to each other. Frodo’s relationship to Gandalf is qualitatively different than his relationship to Tolkien. It has been this consideration, more than anything else, that has put an end to my resistance to the doctrine of the Trinity, not by taking away the mystery, but by making room for it.

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” -Job 38:4

Who are you, I man, to answer back to God?” -Romans 9:20

“How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable are his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” -Romans 11:33b-34a

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways.” -Isaiah 55:9

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.” -Psalm 139:6

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Reflections on the Trinity (1)

I have been pondering the doctrine of the Trinity lately. When I was a younger Christian I never really critically examined this belief, and when I was in college it gave me great difficulty because it seemed arbitrary to me. More recently, I have been struck by the beauty of this doctrine, and the profound implications that it has for epistemology and life. The other day during class I started jotting down some thoughts on the Trinity, and now I will post them here on my blog:

The doctrine of the Trinity should either be dismissed immediately as blatantly irrational, or it should restructure and govern all our thinking. It must either be discarded at the outset, or it must become the root and starting point for all subsequent thought. It is not one truth among other truths, passively waiting to be judged and evaluated by already existing and self-supported standards: it is a new standard, a new criterion, a new judge, breaking in and changing everything. For there is no standard by which God can be weighed outside of God Himself. The doctrine of the Trinity cannot be assimilated into an already functioning worldview, but it must challenge every worldview and call for epistemic revolution. God alone is ultimate, in the world of ideas as well as in the world of action.

The doctrine of the Trinity means that God is deeply mysterious and can only be known by revelation, for no one would have ever discerned by free speculation that God is three in one. If God, who is the first, the highest, and the most real thing, is deeply mysterious to us, and cannot be known apart from revelation, then how much more must we proceed with caution and humility in our knowing of lesser things? In comparison to the weight of God’s majesty, the entire universe is small and light, for He is necessary and eternal and infinite, while the universe is contingent and temporal and finite. If He is mysterious to us, and cannot be obtained by our free speculation, how can we trust free speculation in lesser matters? If we must lean against a wall to know what is most obvious and basic, how could we roam freely in our knowing of what is contingent and unnecessary? At every point in our thinking, we must steeply lean on God. When we wander away from Him, even for one tiny instant, it leads to chaos, because He is God and fills everything.

Trying to think apart from God is no less futile than trying to live apart from God. Just as the heart’s search for happiness can never be successful outside of God, so the mind’s search for truth can never be successful outside of God, because God himself is truth, just as God Himself is happiness. This is why modern Western philosophy, which began with Descartes and the Enlightenment by making autonomous reason absolute, has (according to its own principles!) degenerated into a kind of neo-paganism. Only God can be absolute! The history of secular philosophy, for all its pomp and pretension, is as bad at finding truth as a reckless hedonist is at finding happiness. It has not yet learned that only in submission to God can reality be meaningfully penetrated, for reality itself is God’s. When we breathe air, we are breathing God’s air; when we think thoughts, we are thinking God’s thoughts; when we so much as exist, we exist in God. “For in Him we live and move have our being.” To step away from God is to step into chaos and nothingness.

The doctrine of the Trinity means that ultimate reality is mysterious: but it also means that ultimate reality is a Person – in fact, a community of Persons! The first, the highest, the most real thing is personal. This boggles my mind! According to Christianity, ultimate reality (what is first and most basic) has a will, loves, and is beautiful. Ultimate reality is happy and sings! What a wonderful thought! What is ultimate is not a bland gray but a stream of color: not a “gentle indifference” (cf. Camus) but a fierce love: not a neuter force but a masculine will: not a cold darkness but a radiant joy! This moves me to worship. It is so incredibly beautiful that I instantly know it to be true, for something so beautiful cannot be false. To have seen God, to have beheld His majesty – once a person has done this, what could they ever desire again? To know Him is life and light and certainty and happiness. “Better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere.”

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Question for Calvinists

Today in one of my classes, II Peter 2:1 came up in relation to the Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement. For those out there who hold to limited atonement, how do you interpret this verse? Thanks for any help you can provide.

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” (ESV)

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20 Reasons why Christians should care for the Environment

Christians should be the best environmentalists on the planet, because we uniquely understand what the environment is, what has gone wrong with it, what is being done to fix it, and what our role is in relation to it. Sadly, because of bad theology, over-reaction against environmental excess and pantheism, the influence of our consumeristic and greedy culture, ignorance of the problem, and “neglect by association,” the evangelical church has not done well on this issue in recent years. While I don’t want any environmental, social, or political agenda to become the main business of the church, the gospel is relevant to all of life, and the church has a responsibility to fight injustice and darkness wherever they exist.

Here are 20 reasons why Christians should care about the environment:

1) Just dominion over creation is part of God’s original purpose for his image bearers (Genesis 1:26-29), and the commandment is reiterated to Noah and his sons after the fall (Genesis 9:1-7), indicating it has not been eradicated by sin. This is a very significant charge to be given by our Creator at the time of our creation! As Christians, we have the responsibility of thinking through all that this commandment entails, especially in light of modern scientific and technological advances.

2) God reveals His glory, beauty, and creativity to human beings through creation (Romans 1:20, Psalm 19:1-6). This “general revelation” knowledge truly reveals God’s nature to all human beings across the planet, at all times in history. That alone should make us value the beauty of nature!

“Day to day pour forth speech; night to night reveal knowledge.” -Psalm 19:2 (ESV)

“The world is a theater for the glory of God.” -John Calvin

3) God’s meticulous care for his creation (feeding animals, supplying rain, forming clouds, etc.) elicits praise from God’s people in the Psalms (Psalm 104, 145, 147).

For example, after speaking of God’s care for “the beasts of the field . . . the wild donkeys . . . the birds of the air . . . the cattle . . . the birds . . . the stork . . . the wild goats . . . the coneys . . . the beasts of the forest . . . the lions . . . creatures (of the sea) . . . the leviathin which you formed to frolic,” Psalm 104 bursts into praise:

“How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. . . . All these all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things (24, 27-8).

Or consider Psalm 147:8-9: “He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call.

4) God Himself views his completed creation as “very good” (Genesis 1:31), a statement repeated throughout the creation account. If God values His work, shouldn’t we?

5) Animals are beautiful and noble, demonstrating God’s creativity, goodness, kindness, and sense of humor. Nearly every time I go to the zoo or watch a nature documentary, I am moved to worship.

6) God feels compassion for the cattle of the Ninevah, as well as the people, when threatening judgment (Jonah 4:11).

7) Proverbs 12:10, “a righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.”

8) God makes provision for the survival of animals during Noah’s flood and even enters into covenant with them (Genesis 6:8-17). Rainbows should recall to our minds this “everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth” (16). The fact that God works to protect animal species and covenants with them demonstrates that He values them, and thus so should we.

9) When God created a perfect paradise for Adam to enjoy, of all the settings God could have created, he chose a garden (Genesis 2:8). God filled it with different kinds of beautiful trees (“The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” [2:9]) and a river (2:10). I’ll bet Adam enjoyed climbing the trees, swimming in the river – maybe even chasing the animals around a bit!

10) Poor stewardship over creation damages our witness to our non-Christian friends who care about the environment. In light of the huge number of young people concerned about the environment in our culture today, this is a significant consideration.

11) God is working to recreate and restore not just individual people, but the entire fallen creation. Just as sin was cosmic in scope, causing the very ground to be “cursed” (Genesis 3:17), so redemption is cosmic in scope, causing the entire creation to “groan” in anticipation (Romans 8:19-22) for Jesus’ return, when he will make “all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Since God has not abandoned his creation with a “let it burn” defeatism, neither should we!

12) Human life and flourishing is dependent upon animal and plant life for food, oxygen, vitamins, clothing, environmental stability, and many other basic needs. For example, without insects (as disgusting as we sometimes find them), human beings would be dead in a matter of months.

13) The sheer diversity of animal species on our planet speaks to their value. If God had simply made a few animals, we might deem them unimportant. But God has filled this earth with so many diverse creatures that scientists find it far easier to estimate the number of stars in our galaxy than the number of species on our planet. To give you some perspective: while many years ago humans estimated that there were approximately 1 million different species of animals on our planet, many scientists today estimate that the number of unknown insect species alone is about 30 million! (That does not include known insects or other kinds of animals.) If these creatures are of no value, why did God go to the trouble of making them all?

14) A lifestyle of environmental responsibility corresponds well to the Christian virtues of contentment and simplicity of living.

“Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.” -Proverbs 30:8

15) Most larger animals have acute nervous systems and are very sensitive to pain. While we should prioritize human needs over animal needs, it does not follow that we can treat them however we want. We violate our creational purpose of just dominion when we unnecessarily inflict suffering on animals for greater economic gain. For example, many farm animals such as chickens and cows are kept in cages their entire lives, forced to overeat, genetically altered by being given excessive vitamins, kept alive for long periods of time while suffering terribly, and cruelly killed. Their inferior intelligence often makes these animals totally helpless against human cruelty. Should we not have compassion on animals which are being systematically abused in this way? Think of the un-man torturing frogs in Perelandra!

16) God made provisions for the well-being of animals in the law (e.g., Deuteronomy 22:6-7).

17) The church has a long tradition of respect for God’s creation, as evidenced by a few quotes:

“The little birds are singing of God; the beasts cry unto Him; the elements are in awe of Him; the mountains echo His name; the waves and streams cast their glances at Him; the herbs and flowers praise Him.” -John Calvin

“There is no creature so small and abject, but it reflects the goodness of God.” -Thomas a Kempis

“The initial step for a soul to come to knowledge of God is contemplation of nature.” -Irenaeus

“These creatures minister to our needs every day; without them we could not live; and through them the human race greatly offends the Creator. We fail every day to appreciate so great a blessing by not praising as we should the Creator and Dispenser of all these things.” -Francis of Assisi

“We can gather that all these creatures of the world lead the mind of the contemplative and wise man to the eternal God. For these creatures are shadows, echoes and pictures . . . and vestiges proposed to us and signs given so that we can see God.” -St. Bonaventure

“The heavens declare the glory of God not by speaking in voice audible to the sensible ears, but by manifesting to us through their own greatness, the power of the Creator, and when we remark on their beauty, we give glory to their Maker as the best of all Artificers.” -John of Damascus

“Listen to the sermon preached to you by the flowers, the trees, the shrubs, the sky, and the whole world. Notice how they preach to you a sermon full of love, of praises of God, and how they invite you to glorify the sublimity of that sovereign Artist who has given them being.” -Paul of the Cross

18) Far from hurting the economy, environmental concern can stimulate the economy, when expressed properly. It is disregard for the environment which is actually much more damaging in the long-term. We are creating problems for our grand-children by using up resources so quickly, and we are also bequeathing a less beautiful, more unstable world to them.

19) Proper environmental care leads to greater efficiency in food production and greater accessibility to clean water, two major human needs in many parts of the world. Likewise, poor environmental care will likely reduce long-term food production and access to clean water.

20) If you are still a bit hesitant, watch this series of clips from Planet Earth. Sometimes simply beholding the incredible beauty of God’s creation can help us begin to value it as we should.

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Is abortion important?

To what extent should abortion be an issue for Christian voters in the upcoming election? Should it be the sole vote determiner, or just one factor among many, or not an issue at all? I have had lots of recent conversations with people about these issues, and although I will not attempt to give a thorough answer to them, I do want to at least give a few thoughts.

First, some facts (according to abortionno.org):
-in the United States, 3,700 babies are aborted per day.
-93% of all abortions occur because of social reasons (the child is unwanted/inconvenient), while only 6% are due to health complications, and 1% are the results of rape/incest.
-almost half (48%) of all abortions occur after the ninth week of pregnancy, and 5% happen after the 16th week.
-Tragically, nearly 1 in 5 (18%) women who have an abortion identify themselves as evangelical.
-a total of 48.5 million babies have been aborted since Roe vs. Wade in 1973 – that is roughly 1/6 of our population (300 million).

This is a tough post to write. Let me make it clear at the outset that I am not trying to pick a fight with anyone who disagrees or condemn anyone who has had an abortion. I do, however, feel compelled to speak a few words about this issue. Although I welcome my non-Christian friends to read along and comment, I am primarily writing to my fellow Christians here.

The first thing to say is that we who are Christians should be among the most socially, politically, and culturally engaged people in society.  Sometimes thoughtful Christians get so turned off by some of the more radical wings of the “religious right” that they just tune out when it come social issues like abortion. But we are called by our Lord to be the salt and light of the world and to fight injustice wherever it exists. Who will fight for justice if Christians do not? And what greater injustice is there in contemporary American society than the killing of the unborn? One of the most basic themes of biblical justice is the protection of the needy and the defense of those who cannot defend themselves. Do we not have a deep responsibility to protect the life that God creates and values?

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.” -Psalm 139:13-14

One of the most common sentiments I hear from some of my Christian friends is, “yes, abortion is a great evil, but we should not be single-issue voters – we should look at all of the various issues in making our voting decision.”

For anyone thinking along those lines, I plead with you to read this brief article by John Piper. It is certainly true that we should look at all the various issues, but its also true that some issues may be more important than others; some may even be critically, decisively important. Each issue should have a degree of importance proportionate to its moral, spiritual, and social quality. So the question, what kind of moral, spiritual, and social quality does the termination of the unborn have? Without saying more on this, I refer you to Piper’s very good article.

Another common response is, “yes, abortion is important, but whether or not we have a pro-life President is not important, because that does not really effect the number of abortions that occur.”

Its true that fighting against abortion requires more than simply voting for a pro-life Presidential candidate, but it does not follow that our President’s stance is not important at all. In addition to the obvious role of appointing Supreme Court Justices (an important factor in over-turning Roe vs. Wade), this article lists numerous ways that having a pro-life President makes a difference for the abortion issue (thanks to Justin Taylor for the link).

I urge all of my fellow Christians to seriously and prayerfully consider this important issue as November 2008 approaches. I plead with you to use your vote to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

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