Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Who Is Smart Now?
The rejection of creationism is not just a factual issue. It is a very religious one. I challenge Christians to read this refutal of creationism. If you get bored with the details, at least read the conclusion. "Scientifically Creationism is worthless, philosophically it is confused, and theologically it is blinkered beyond repair." He is making claims so strong, so emotionally invoking that he had better have absolute certainty to back them. Absolute certainty is something that no philosopher/scientist can achieve. In fact, it is conventionally unacceptable. That is precisely why people are afraid of Christians and creationism, which claim to know the truth with certainty. I heard a sociologist say last week that faith is the one thing that has caused wars and genocide most consistently through history. The reason being that people are motivated to act, not by intellect or respect to the greater good of society, but by faith and the motivation of eternal recompense for failure in this life. He has a fair point. However, he does not realize that we may have an even greater disagreement than we originally realized. We do not agree on the nature of faith. We have this idea that faith is one thing, logic is another, and the two always fight: may cooler heads prevail. This is not true from any sense, and perfectly untrue from a biblical perspective. The Bible speaks of faith as being evidence based, substantive, and persuasive. Paul speaks of those apart from God as being without an apologetic. This idea that faith is something that does not make sense is a wrong idea within Christianity. "Our faith" is not a feeling of devotion or closeness to God, but being persuaded of the truth of the entire system of Christian theology.
Likewise, the evolutionist has this type of faith. He hates this allegation, but he has to accept it. He has to accept it because he really does not know what happened ten years ago, let alone ten billion. He is a presuppositional creature. I tire of reading these debates, not because of the terms mechanical naturalism, irreducible complexity, intelligent design, etc. The problem is that these people focus the debate on the wrong location. Why does the evolutionist look at a molecule and see something, while the creationist looks at the same molecule and sees something else? I think it is because the molecule is actually irrelevant to the debate. What is in question is the entire philosophical system, the presuppositions, the world view, the interpretive grid. We could debate the integrity of a "faith" as such by comparing it to molecules, but the best way to examine the integrity of that faith is by comparing the entire systems as structures.
Likewise, the evolutionist has this type of faith. He hates this allegation, but he has to accept it. He has to accept it because he really does not know what happened ten years ago, let alone ten billion. He is a presuppositional creature. I tire of reading these debates, not because of the terms mechanical naturalism, irreducible complexity, intelligent design, etc. The problem is that these people focus the debate on the wrong location. Why does the evolutionist look at a molecule and see something, while the creationist looks at the same molecule and sees something else? I think it is because the molecule is actually irrelevant to the debate. What is in question is the entire philosophical system, the presuppositions, the world view, the interpretive grid. We could debate the integrity of a "faith" as such by comparing it to molecules, but the best way to examine the integrity of that faith is by comparing the entire systems as structures.
