Comment on LSU leaves out key facts by Denver Fletcher.

I’d first like to say that this problem – of teachers teaching what is completely opposed to the intentions of their employer – is a problem of employment law and policy. It is complicated by what seems a reluctance on the part of the administrators to openly admit that the employment contracts and conditions of teachers at LSU are insufficient to ensure that parents and students are not being defrauded in paying for an Adventist education at LSU, and further complicated by a reluctance on the part of those same administrators to openly declare their own position on the crucial issue at hand. My understanding of employment law in the US is limited, so I have nothing else to say on that question, except to echo the sentiments of other parents who will not continue to pay anyone to defraud us.

My other observation is that, in his debate with Sean, Carl has forgotten that science is merely a tool to explain what we see (or can perceive in other ways, directly or indirectly). It cannot ever explain – or even express an opinion – on that which is beyond our perceptions. Furthermore, it deliberately excludes, by definition, the possibility of supernatural explanations.

That doesn’t mean that science **demands** that everything we perceive has its origins in itself: many of the greatest scientists were not merely theists but Christians. It simply acknowledges that we do not learn anything if we continue to fill in blanks in our knowledge or understanding with “God did it” any more than we once wrote “Here be dragons” on blank parts of our maps of the earth. Doing this does not dispose us to go and look, which is what a scientist does. God was, of course, the very first scientist, which is why HE said “test Me, and see” (Malachi 3: 10).

Carl’s basic problem is that he thinks/believes that science produces objective, unbiased (i.e. not predisposed), conclusions. As a consequence of this basic problem, he suffers from several others, notably that he **believes** these conclusions produced by an explicitly atheistic culture of “science, so called” in preference to believing God.

But, as the first proposition is completely untrue, so too is the second erroneous.

Science ties axioms to conclusions by means of testable logic. These have a simple primary construction: “IF A, THEN B” (although there are many, more complex, iterations that are possible, they all proceed from this basic construction).

The element “A” in this debate is “There is no God”.

**IF** this statement is true, then B equals “all that we perceive came about by other means”. By purely naturalistic and material means. By the “self organising properties of matter”.

But, that little word “IF” is the key. IF the statement (A) that “There is no God” is NOT true, then nor is (B) true.

Carl believes that this argument is about conclusions, but it is not. It is about axioms. But it is axiomatic that our primary axioms cannot be proven as the conclusion of some earlier argument. At some point we are obliged to accept that some things simply are, and cannot be disproved scientifically. In other words, we are obliged to CHOOSE our axioms, since they cannot be tested. God cannot be reproduced in a laboratory, and nor can the putative cause of the “Big Bang”. Neither history, nor archaeology, can be re-produced. We do not have a “scientific” method for examining these things. What we have are statements from (biased, flawed) witnesses, leftover artefacts, and networks of arguments connecting these together.

We also have some ongoing processes that we can examine, and that may teach us useful things about the other elements of our science.

As Christians, SDA’s believe as our primary axiom that “There IS a God”. We have the statements of (equally flawed) eye witnesses, we have artefacts, and we have arguments connecting these together. We also have ongoing processes (the miraculous changes in the lives of former unbelievers, for example) that we can examine, and that may teach us useful things about the other elements of our faith.

That some people find these unconvincing is not surprising, nor that some of these should appear among us. Were we not warned that this would be so?

Finally, I am puzzled by the attitudes of some on this issue. Do these people think this hasn’t happened before? Do they really think they have anything NEW to offer? Do they really think that scholars and scientists and believers – intellectual giants, many of them – have not pondered these questions for many centuries? Do they really think that these “objections” are novel? That their claims to scientific integrity are new? That they haven’t been themselves disproven over and over again?

Such people appear to think that they can simultaneously believe that God exists while demanding that everything else is independent of Him. That He is not necessary for “life, the universe, everything”. But both science and history tell us that such people soon conclude that if God is not necessary then there is no necessity to believe in Him or to believe that He has said anything to us at all. The cognitive dissonance eventually overwhelms them, and Occam’s Razor does its work. They discard God as un-necessary to them. They cannot do otherwise, for their god, their science, demands it. That which is not necessary is redundant. Worse, it is “inelegant”. (Quelle horreur!)

Carl is, unfortunately, in the middle of a struggle to choose who he wants respect from: Man, or God.

He is vainly trying to maintain respectability in the eyes of both, by claiming to believe that there IS a God, while not believing what God has said, and preferring to believe what Man has said.

But since these cannot be reconciled, this effort must fail. His struggle must end, either with a return to God or a turning away from Him altogether. There is no middle path. Not according to our God, nor according to Man.

Give me an honest atheist any day.

Psalm 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. (The primary axiom of the atheist scientist: described by David over 3,000 years ago)

2 Peter 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. (Uniformitarian assumption – actually PREsumption – described by Peter, 2,000 years ago)

1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. (The inevitable departure from the faith, described by John nearly 2,000 years ago)

Revelation 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. (God’s judgement on those who lack the courage of their professed convictions, described by John nearly 2,000 years ago).

There is a tragic inevitability to all of this. The only proper response for us is to pity such a lost and confused people.

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