Comment on Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation by Sean Pitman.
Sean, we must make a distinction between evidence to validate the bible specifically, and scientific evidence to prove God created the world.
Again, you keep using the word “prove” over and over again despite being constantly reminded that there is no such thing as absolute proof in science or anything else. There is only the weight of evidence – of predictive value, not proof.
Beyond this, the evidence that God created the universe is based on the very same type of reasoning that can be used to support the contention that the Bible is the true Word of God without compare. Both can be presented as forms of scientific hypotheses that can be tested by the empirical evidence in a potentially falsifiable manner…
So, are you intent on “proving” by science that God created the world, or, are you endeavoring to give scientific evidence that the bible is true?
I’m saying that the weight of evidence strongly favors both ideas – that God created the universe and life on this Earth as the Bible describes and that the Bible itself is the true Word of God.
Bible prophecy is validated by way of the historical process in light of on going time. Is this “falsifiable” evidence? I would think so.
Yes, you’re right here. Biblical prophecy is indeed based on the evidence supporting the historical sciences. That is why Biblical claims to historically fulfilled prophecies can be investigated against known historical data, empirical data, in a potentially falsifiable manner.
The Christian intent for a Protestant is to give all the evidence possible to validate scripture. In which case, scripture validates itself for what it teaches.
By definition nothing can validate itself. That’s circular reasoning. Biblical prophecy doesn’t validate itself. It is not an automatic given that it is true. It must first be investigated and compared against an external source of validation – i.e., known history based on empirical evidence that is currently in hand. This is an external source for validating the internal claims of Biblical prophecy.
But science doesn’t prove a nickels worth that God created anything. Science, like the “schoolmaster” in Galatians, leads us to seek some viable answer to creation. But science gives us no answer in and of itself. It gives us a problem with no answer within itself.
Not true. Science is able to lead those who study nature alone, those who have no knowledge of the Bible or any other witness about God, to detect His signature in nature – to recognize, at minimum, the existence of a higher creative Power that cannot readily be distinguished from that belonging to a God or God-like being. This recognition has the power to cause those who would like to know more of such a God to look harder to discover God – and God will not leave them empty handed.
In fact, there have been numerous modern scientists, to include several Nobel Laureates, who have concluded, often against their own will and naturalistic bias, to admit that the existence of a God as the author of many features of our universe is rationally undeniable.
Evolution claims science in and of itself can and will give us an answer as to origins. No way. And so I said, “Neither can science prove God created the world.”
Again, you’re using the word “proof”. While it is true that science cannot definitively prove God’s existence it is also true that science cannot definitively prove anything.
The power of science, or scientific reasoning, as already noted, is that it produces predictive power based on the weight of evidence. This weight of evidence does in fact strongly favor the hypothesis that a God of magnificent creative power and intelligence is responsible for creating our universe and life on this planet – and is the Source of the written Word, the Bible, as well.
No evolutionist will ever look to the bible for an answer as long as they feel they can find the answer within science itself. And any effort to prove God created the world by way of science is an exercise in futility.
Again, you’re mistaken. Many former evolutionists have and will continue to look at the Bible because of their study of the Book of Nature. The Book of Nature, the empirical world in which we live, was also written by the same Author as the primary Author of the Bible. The honest and sincere study of any book written by God will eventually lead cause one to recognize His signature in His other books and desire to read and study them as well…
So, I said, “We don’t play their game based on their rules.” But it seems like you think you can.
It seems like you don’t understand the rules. The rules of true scientific investigation and study were not invented by any human being. They were invented by God and given to us as a gift to be able to think and consider all of His works rationally and intelligently.
You need to stop calling God’s gifts “their rules”. They are God’s rules of logical and rational thought…
So, my question to you is this, “Do you want to use science to point to the bible as the only answer, or do you think by way of science you can prove origins?”
By way of science, true God-given science and scientific reasoning, one can absolutely detect that the weight of empirical evidence strongly supports the Bible’s claim to be the only true written Word of God and to God’s signature written all over the natural world in which we live.
Again, this is not “proof” mind you… since absolute “proof” is not part of science.
I don’t know if anyone has really been able to follow your thinking on this matter and there is still apparent confusion that leads to endless dialogue with little or no clarification.
Perhaps that’s because you and several others have yet to realize that the ability to think in a scientific manner is from God, not man? You seem fearful of science – perhaps because you think it is of man’s creation and is therefore inferior to God-given faith. Don’t you know that both faith and reason are God-given?
Sure, many distort these gifts and use them against the Giver because of personal motives that are contrary to God’s will. However, their honest application and use are in harmony with God’s will that they go hand-in-hand without one trumping the other. God made them, science and faith, interdependent.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen:
The Bible makes claims about the future. It does not cause the future. It therefore is not “self-validating”. It’s just a book after all. It can be read, but it cannot itself act to perform any tasks. Therefore, it’s claims, if they are to be rationally understood to be “true” must obviously be supported by external evidence based on the historical sciences. In other words, its own claims regarding history are validated by external sources – based on independent evidence that comes from outside of itself. How is this concept not self-evident?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Professor Kent:
Let’s get a few things straight. I have not attacked the claims of scripture regarding the “the recent origin of all life on this planet, created within just six literal days, and the worldwide nature of the Noachian Flood.” All I did was point out that the physical evidence supporting flood geology has serious problems.
That is an attack on Scripture. When you attempt to undermine the empirical claims of Scripture as being contrary to the weight of empirical evidence, you are in fact undermining the rational basis for Scriptural credibility.
Don’t you recognize that in claiming that the weight of scientific evidence clearly favors the neo-Darwinian perspective, a perspective which is diametrically opposed to the Biblical perspective, you do in fact undermine the credibility of the Biblical account? Your faith-only approach, regardless of the evidence, simply doesn’t do it for many people. For many many people such arguments as you are presenting do in fact undermine the rational basis for their faith despite your own ability to be able to have faith despite the weight evidence. Many people see this as irrational – and for good reason.
Faith, without a need for a basis in the weight of evidence, is irrational by definition. It is blind-faith in that it cannot be rationally distinguished from a form of wishful thinking.
And you were the one, not me, who has asserted that the flood did not create all of the layers of the geological column.
Of course. I fail to see why this might be a problem?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Eddie:
By implication Nebuchadnezzar won the battle with Egypt – just as Ezekiel prophesied. Otherwise, it is unlikely that the Babylonians would have recorded the event…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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