Comment on LSU student: ‘Apostates or Apostles’? by Sean Pitman.
Prof. Kent,
You yourself appeal to empirical evidence all the time as a basis for your faith in the Bible as truly having a Divine origin vs. other competing options. You wrote:
In short, there is ample evidence to support the Bible and Christianity, including fulfilled prophecy, the lives and testimony of the apostles, archeology, the impact of the Bible on personal lives, and so forth. All of this is “empirical evidence†that goes beyond what is needed to establish the validity of scripture. The other religions are confronted with serious shortcomings on these issues, in my opinion… – Professor Kent
I agree. If the Bible did not have the backing of the “weight” of such empirical evidence (as Mrs. White also explained), there would be no rational basis for belief in it as the true Word of God vs. the claims made for any other text as the true Word of God – such as the Book of Mormon, the Qur’an, etc.
According to Mrs. White, “God appeals to reason and waits for each person to decide on the basis of the weight of evidence and the constraint of love.” – Steps to Christ, pp. 43-47; The Desire of Ages, p. 458; Testimonies, vol. 3, p. 255; vol. 4, pp. 583, 584.
The “weight of evidence” is different for different people. Only God knows what a person does and does not actually comprehend or what does and does not appeal to a given individual’s mind. That is why only God can truly judge the moral state of a person since only God knows if truth has been comprehended based on the evidence given and deliberately rejected.
I do not judge the moral state of those LSU professors who go about promoting the Darwinian story of origins as the Gospel truth to their students. I think it likely that in their own minds they are doing the right thing. Only God knows for sure of course, but it is quite possible that these professors could be sincere based on their own individual understanding of the weight of evidence.
Yet, while they may be morally upright before God (due to their misunderstanding of the weight of evidence), their honesty in this regard does not mean that they are fit to teach in our SDA Schools of higher learning.
Honesty and sincerity alone do not fit a person to be an effective representative of the goals and ideals of the SDA Church – or any organization for that matter. One must actually believe in the goals and ideals of the employer first before one can be an effective representative of those goals and ideals.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
LSU student: ‘Apostates or Apostles’?
Please find my reply in the thread for “La Sierra University won’t Reject Creation Teaching:” @Sean Pitman:
There’s no point talking about the same thing in two different threads.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
LSU student: ‘Apostates or Apostles’?
@Professor Kent:
You wrote:
If I realized this deep down, I would take Noah for a fool when God instructed him to build a massive boat to escape a rain and a flood the proportions of which reason would dictate to be impossible. Why did Noah obey? Was it simple trust in God’s word, or use of his emotion-free reason?
Not if you had talked directly with God like Noah did and had hundreds of prior years of experience with God, experiencing his constant reliability and credibility.
Noah had abundant very direct empirical evidence of God’s existence and power – much more direct empirical evidence than we have today. His was not an empirically-blind faith by any means in the word of some stranger claiming to be God.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
LSU student: ‘Apostates or Apostles’?
You wrote:
“1) Do you agree wholeheartedly with Sola Scriptura and the historical-grammatical hermeneutic elucidated by the GC “Rio†document and the SDA Biblical Research Institute scholars?”
I believe that once one has established the credibility of the Scriptures to the level of having a very high likelihood of being of Divine origin, then it would be unwise to set them aside in favor of anything else…
You go on to ask:
“2) If so, do you continue to believe that those who accept a simple “Thus saith the Lord†are as duped as believers in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster?”
It depends on why they accept the Bible as their source of authority. Different people have different weights of evidence. What does it for one may not do it for another – only God can judge.
However, I do know that God does in fact desire us to make an intelligent decision in favor of His Word based on the weight of evidence – the weight of empirical evidence. He does not desire empirically-blind faith in His Word. He desires His children to have a thoughtful rational religion – not a religion based on mere emotion-driven blind faith that is devoid of any basis in empirical reality…
You realize this yourself, deep down, or you wouldn’t keep referencing consistency with historical data as one of your bases for supporting the Bible’s authority vs. other claimed sources of Divine authority. You yourself cannot help but present empirical evidences to support your own belief in the Bible’s Divine origin.
So, there you have it.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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