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
@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
