Comment on Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation by Sean Pitman.
You’ve tried to slip this disingenious explanation past us before. You just can’t bring yourself to admit that YOUR gold criterion of truth–science–fails to explain at the most elemental level what God can do.
The science of detecting the need for intelligent design behind certain phenomena holds for floating axeheads and the like. If you saw an axehead floating, as described in the Biblical story, even you would immediately know that high level deliberate intelligence was required to explain what you’re seeing. It is for this reason that such things are recognizable as “miracles” of design and creative power rather than simply another “natural” phenomenon.
The other question, of course, is, “Did this fantastic story really happen as described?” Again, one can only rationally answer “Yes” to this question if one can establish a very high level of credibility for the story teller. This is also based on scientific methodologies which are subject to testing and potential falsification… not just non-testable empirically-blind faith.
Admit it: metal is denser than water, and therefore it sinks. Can you not grasp simple physics?
Your point?
It is because I can and do grasp simple physics that I would recognize the design behind a floating axehead if I were to ever see such a demonstration… as described by the Bible storyteller. I would recognize it as non-natural outside of deliberate design and creative power.
You would no doubt come to the same conclusion if you saw something similar happen in front of your own eyes. For example, say you do your experiment with your own axehead. You throw your various kinds of sticks in your pool and nothing happens – the axehead stays at the bottom of your pool. Then, say, I happen to walk up and toss a stick of my own in your pool and, surprise surprise, the axehead starts “floating” up to the surface. What would you think? You may not know how I did this “trick”, but you’d know one thing – it was done by deliberate design which required high-level intelligence and creative power…
And, by the way, just watch a few hidden video shows on TV and you’ll see deliberately designed set-ups very similar to this done all the time. This is not saying that all of God’s miracles can be copied (not remotely true). However, I can certainly visualize how the floating axehead scenario might be produced by human-level design…
God’s existence–His power, His might, and His spoken word–goes far beyond your insistence that we can put God to the test of human reason and understanding.
We wouldn’t be able to detect the fact that God’s power, might, intelligence, or spoken word go far beyond human capabilities if we were not able to reason empirically/scientifically from cause to effect or from effect to likely cause – if we were not able to detect a need to invoke such high-level intelligence and creative power that cannot be distinguished, from our perspective, from that belonging to a God or God-like entity.
Therefore, it is precisely science, or a form of scientific reasoning based on empirical evidence, that allows us to detect the amazing signature of God in all of His works – to include nature and the Bible.
How is this not an intuitive concept? How is it that anyone can argue that the signature of a Designer cannot be rationally detected from the study of His own handiwork? How is it rational to claim that empirically-blind faith alone is able to detect God? – via a form of faith that is not easily distinguished from wishful thinking?
You’re also being inconsistent. You’re claiming that you recognize that the Bible is the Word of God by faith alone, yet you reject what the Bible says about our God-given ability to recognize God’s signature through the study of nature and in empirical evidences supporting the validity of the written Word (such as historically-fulfilled prophecies and other empirically-testable claims)…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Wesley Kime:
Thanks Wes. 🙂
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Ron:
I actually agree with you here…
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Professor Kent:
Of course God can produce miracles such as an axe floating on water, the virgin birth of Jesus, and the resurrection of a human body several days after death. I never said they were impossible, for God can perform miracles which defy all understanding and simply cannot be explained.
God can also perform miracles that can be explained and understood – as easily as we can understand how to make a chocolate cake or a space ship. Such things might seem miraculous from the perspective of those who don’t know how to make such things – like striking a match in front of people living in the dark jungles of Africa.
Miracles are a matter of perspective. What seems perfectly natural to God might seem quite amazing and miraculous to us. It’s only different in degree or level of knowledge and creative power – that’s all.
That is why such miracles are not beyond the power of science to detect as requiring the input of very high levels of creative power and intelligent design.
Even someone who can’t make a match or a chocolate cake knows that such things require creative intelligence to produce when they see them…
If you want to insist that science can explain these claims from the Bible as readily as my claim that Mrs. Kent can make a chocolate cake, you’re not only delusional, but you have every one of your readers wincing about such a ridiculous claim.
As I’ve explained many times, these things are all relative. I never said that they were all on the same level of creativity or design. What I said is that science can detect the need for intelligence, at various levels, to explain such things.
Beyond this, the notion that these stories really happened as described, that they aren’t just “cleverly invented stories” (2 Peter 1:16), isn’t based on faith alone if you want your faith to be something more than mere wishful thinking. You need some kind of evidence to support the credibility of the story teller. A fantastic story demands fantastic evidence that God not only exists but that He really did act in the manner described.
There’s no comparison between God’s remarkable miracles and the human accomplishment of making a cake. You are denigrating your creator.
Hardly. I’m pointing out that God’s creations, while often vastly superior to our own, are detectable in nature and in the written Word (using scientific methodologies for detecting design on various levels of creative power) as requiring very very high levels of deliberate design and creative power.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
Science and Methodological Naturalism
Very interesting passage. After all, if scientists are honest with themselves, scientific methodologies are well-able to detect the existence of intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. It’s just the personal philosophy of scientists that makes them put living things and the origin of the fine-tuned universe “out of bounds” when it comes to the detection of intelligent design. This conclusion simply isn’t dictated by science itself, but by a philosophical position, a type of religion actually, that strives to block the Divine Foot from getting into the door…
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Why is it that creationists are afraid to acknowledge the validity of Darwinism in these settings? I don’t see that these threaten a belief in God in any way whatsoever.
The threat is when you see no limitations to natural mindless mechanisms – where you attribute everything to the creative power of nature instead of to the God of nature.
God has created natural laws that can do some pretty amazing things. However, these natural laws are not infinite in creative potential. Their abilities are finite while only God is truly infinite.
The detection of these limitations allows us to recognize the need for the input of higher-level intelligence and creative power that goes well beyond what nature alone can achieve. It is here that the Signature of God is detectable.
For those who only hold a naturalistic view of the universe, everything is attributed to the mindless laws of nature… so that the Signature of God is obscured. Nothing is left that tells them, “Only God or some God-like intelligent mind could have done this.”
That’s the problem when you do not recognize any specific limitations to the tools that God has created – when you do not recognize the limits of nature and what natural laws can achieve all by themselves.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Bill Sorensen:
Since the fall of Adam, Sean, all babies are born in sin and they are sinners. God created them. Even if it was by way of cooperation of natural law as human beings also participated in the creation process.
God did not create the broken condition of any human baby – neither the physical or moral brokenness of any human being. God is responsible for every good thing, to include the spark or breath of life within each one of us. However, He did not and does not create those things within us that are broken or bad.
“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'” Matthew 13:27-28
Of course, all humans are indeed born broken and are in a natural state of rebellion against God. However, God is not the one who created this condition nor is God responsible for any baby being born with any kind of defect in character, personality, moral tendency, or physical or genetic abnormality. God did not create anyone with such brokenness. Such were the natural result of rebellion against God and heading the temptations of the “enemy”… the natural result of a separation from God with the inevitable decay in physical, mental, and moral strength.
Of course, the ones who are born broken are not responsible for their broken condition either. However, all of us are morally responsible for choosing to reject the gift of Divine Grace once it is appreciated… and for choosing to go against what we all have been given to know, internally, of moral truth. In other words, we are responsible for rebelling against the Royal Law written on the hearts of all mankind.
This is because God has maintained in us the power to be truly free moral agents in that we maintain the Power to choose, as a gift of God (Genesis 3:15). We can choose to accept or reject the call of the Royal Law, as the Holy Spirit speaks to all of our hearts…
Remember the statement by Mrs. White that God is in no wise responsible for sin in anyone at any time. God is working to fix our broken condition. He did not and does not create our broken condition. Just as He does not cause Babies to be born with painful and lethal genetic defects, such as those that result in childhood leukemia, He does not cause Babies to be born with defects of moral character either. God is only directly responsible for the good, never the evil, of this life.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Again, your all-or-nothing approach to the claims of scientists isn’t very scientific. Even the best and most famous of scientists has had numerous hair-brained ideas that were completely off base. This fact does not undermine the good discoveries and inventions that were produced.
Scientific credibility isn’t based on the person making the argument, but upon the merits of the argument itself – the ability of the hypothesis to gain predictive value when tested. That’s it.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Don’t be so obtuse here. We’re not talking about publishing just anything in mainstream journals. I’ve published several articles myself. We’re talking about publishing the conclusion that intelligent design was clearly involved with the origin of various artifactual features of living things on this planet. Try getting a paper that mentions such a conclusion published…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
