Comment on Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation by Sean Pitman.
You pretend to forget that I wholeheartedly embrace the fact that God goes far beyond human potential and any science we have to understand it. I celebrate this conviction every day. I express my gratitude for this to God each day. In person.
Whenever God goes “far beyond any science we have to understand it”, that means, by definition, that it is not subject to testing in a falsifiable manner. Again, the claim that God can produce a virgin birth or raise the dead or other such miracles of Divine design is not subject to direct testing or the potential for falsification. If such claims were directly testable, they would be within the realm of science. It is only because such claims are not directly testable that they are outside of the realm of direct scientific investigation by modern methods.
Therefore, you’re the one trying to place Divine miracles within the realm of science while, ironically, I’m the one trying to explain to you that they are outside of the realm of direct scientific investigation.
Your problem is that you claim our belief in God must be founded in the empirical evidence derived from science.
That’s right. A rational belief in God must be based on the weight of empirical evidence in order to make it something more than mere wishful thinking or a feel-good religion.
I keep telling you that we can believe in God and many of His claims without the need to invoke science.
Not without first establishing His existence and the Divine origin of His written Word via the weight of empirical evidence. Only once this is done can the Bible be used as a trustworthy guide with established credibility regarding those statements which cannot be directly tested or potentially falsified.
You further claim that SDAs are the only ones who use their reason, intelligence, and reliance on potentially falsifiable empirical evidence when determining truth, which gives us and only us a solid hope in a bright future. I say your assertions amount to nothing more than hubris, and faithful SDAs recognize this.
Christianity at large is indeed fairly unique in that its founders intended it to be based on empirical evidence that appeals to the rational candid mind. This perspective is not unique to SDAs by any means, but was the basis of faith cited by the disciples of Christ Himself – and the writers of the Bible. Nowhere do the writers of the Bible claim that God desires or expects blind faith in the Written Word.
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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