Comment on Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’ by Inge Anderson.
@ Professor Kent
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. Romans 10:17 (NIV)
Probably the more accurate reading, rather than “the word about Christ” (NIV) is “the word of God,” as the more literal translations read. Thus, the reference is to the recorded Scriptures then extant.
That may be good enough for a lot of people, but when I was young, I wondered about the evidence for the existence of God and the dependability of the Bible itself. Not being sophisticated enough at the time, I didn’t even realize that this text of “faith comes by hearing the word” [whether of chairman Mao, the Koran, the Book of Mormons or the Bible] is equally true, no matter what our source of the “word” might be. After all, it is psychologically true that we are changed by our focus (by beholding Christ, we become like Him, by beholding evil, we become evil].
In my teens, I did have the gut feeling that I had to choose what to believe. (My father was a closet agnostic, and I sensed it, while my mother was a third-generation Adventist believer.) At the time, the alternative of agnosticism didn’t seem all that attractive, and I tentatively chose to believe in God and the Bible.
However, if that initial choice had not been confirmed by my experience of testing [according to the scientific method, as Sean so often explains it], I would not have arrived at the settled faith I now hold.
So Romans 10:17 may be good enough in a specific cultural context, but it is no help at all in choosing between belief systems such as communism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Mormonism, Mohammedanism, etc. In each case, “faith” comes by “hearing”/reading the “word” of the founder/leader. Millions of adherents demonstrate that this is so.
Many young people in Western society grow up without a specific belief system, and they are faced with choosing between a confusing array of world religions. Your repetitive mantra of “only faith” is no help at all. By contrast, Sean’s reasoned apologetic in behalf of the Creator God of Christianity invites investigation and belief.
Furthermore, we cannot take for granted that the young people who attend our colleges have a settled Christian belief of their own — particularly those who “inherited” their belief system. Not having had to wrestle with questions of belief, they are still in the time of critical decision-making, as is demonstrated by those who become agnostics as a result of attending science classes in an evolutionary framework.
For me, understanding the shakiness of the evolutionary claims of naturalism, as clarified in my “Philosophy of Science” class at AU, helped forge my faith in the Creator God who “spoke and it was done.”
Inge Anderson Also Commented
Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’
@ Ken
I shouldn’t reply before reading your whole post. 😉
Truth is immutable but Present Truth is not but we can only know Present Truth. Bit of a relativistic conundrum isn’t it?
‘Present’ in this context is really an euphemism for relative.
You say truth is immutable?! Or are you attributing that understanding to folks like Wes, Sean and me?
I don’t see “present truth” as a euphemism for “relative.” I see it as a matter of emphasis on a particular aspect of the whole truth. It should not do away with other aspects of truth.
Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’
@ Ken with just a quick note:
Why is truth progressive but faith fixed? Why did mankind proceed from polytheism to monotheisn?
First of all, I notice that Sean wrote very precisely –not writing that truth is progressive, but that our understanding of truth is progressive. Big difference.
I believe that in any particular culture understanding of truth is generally progressive, but I don’t believe that’s true for all of man’s history. (I have a feeling that we don’t understand truth nearly as well as Enoch did.)
Secondly, I believe it is incorrect to assume that man proceeded “from polytheism to monotheism.” That’s an evolutionary concept, because the Bible clearly teaches that man originally worshiped the one Creator God.
We can see how that original faith became corrupted and developed into polytheism. The original offerings that were meant to prefigure the death of the incarnate Creator became corrupted into various kinds of sacrifices to appease the gods. (Even the Jews lost sight of the significance of the sacrifices.)
By the way, your last post confirms your “postmodern” mind set in that it is apparent that you apparently do not believe that absolute truth exists.
Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’
@ Ken
Thanks for your response 🙂
I understand and appreciate your entreaty to let go of the intellect to experience God.
I obviously didn’t make myself clear.
I do not encourage letting go of your intellect to “experience God.” Quite the opposite. I encourage making an intelligent decision to “taste and see” that God is good. He encourages us to “try” (test) Him. But the only way to do it is on His terms. That means a surrender to His way. Then you can “test” Him. You can’t do it fully from the outside looking in, though God does act to reveal Himself to honest seekers who are willing to surrender. There is an instance in the gospels where Jesus said to a doubting father, “All things are possible to them who believe.” The father recognized the Jesus saw his heart, and in desperation cried out, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” He knew there was some unbelief in his heart that he couldn’t overcome on his own, and the Lord answered his prayer. His son was healed.
If you are willing to be made willing, the Lord will do it for you.
Eastern religions encourage you to let go of your intellect. God encourages us to “come now and let us reason together.” Big difference.
This is a zen like concept that may have some merit. When I run long distances I often feel a connectedness with everything. Quite peaceful actually. Query: if experiencing God is an individual experience who is to say I am not doing so when I am high on endorphins and communing with nature? Or is it just physiological well being?
Yes, I know that endorphin rush, though it took a day of hiking three “day hikes” end-to-end to experience it. At the end of the day, I felt like I could still run up the nearest mountain. 😉 (A delusional state, I’m sure. 😉 )
While we may each have an individual experience/relationship with God, there are objective measures of the reality of this experience. Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” A change of heart that makes us love to do God’s will is an objective measure of a conversion experience. We may still fail to live up to what we know to be truth, but we will recognize it and feel genuine sorrow over the doubt that caused our fall into sin.
If there is no change in the outward life, that is objective evidence that there is no real relationship with God. Those who do have a relationship with God will continually grow to be more like Him, and objective observers will see the transformation — however slowly it may happen.
I wonder if certain people are genetically predisposed towards faith whereas others like me are predisposed towards perpetual curiosity?
Chuckle. “Perpetually curious” is probably how my husband would describe me. 😉 Perpetual curiosity is no hindrance to a Christian experience, as long as we are willing to let God be God in His sphere. The prideful wish to “have the last word” (i.e. doubt) or the wish to possess ultimate knowledge are hindrances, though. They are part of a wish to be complete master of our own destiny that gets in the way of accepting Jesus as Lord and Master.
The paradox is that in surrender to Jesus Christ, we experience the highest kind of freedom possible. We experience freedom from the chains of sin that bound us — fears, worries, and habits of thought and action. How constantly we experience this depends on the constancy of our connection with Christ. The way I see it, growth in Christian experience is a matter of growth in the proportion of time we are truly “connected” to Him. Because, when we are truly connected, we shall act like Him.
I remember asking ontological questions in Sunday school class right from the get go. No one has ever satisfactorily explained a rational bases of theodicy to me.
I believe that a good understanding of the war between Christ and Satan goes a long way towards a rational explanation. Also think about what true freedom of choice means. Could God both allow true freedom of choice and prevent all evil?
Apparently true freedom — which makes true love possible — was of such ultimate importance to God that He risked being misunderstood by allowing real freedom of choice.
I see a pattern in Man’s iteration of God(s) throughout history. Likely such folks were people of strong faith as well. Were they right or relative in their understanding for their time?
Paul says that “spiritual things are spirituall discerned.” So you may have to content yourself with not getting all the answers ahead of time. 😉
What will Man’s understanding of God be in a thousand years time. Will there be a melding between quantum mechanics and religion. All matter is part of God and as we better understand matter we better understand God?
That “all matter is part of God” is a competing philosophy to that of Christianity which affirms that the Creator is distinct from and outside of nature.
Does evolution which seemingly runs on natural selection have a deeper hidden design- an essence of life that drives it?
Have you paid attention to Sean’s posts on the limits of evolution in biology? Evolution is not a godlike mechanism.
The evolution that actually happens consists of relatively small adaptations of living organisms to the environment. In the majority of such changes, the possibility for such changes was already inherent in the original organism, and the adaptation is simply a matter of expressing a subset of characteristics. Sometimes, it’s a loss of genetic material. At other times, it’s a matter of mutations resulting in different genetic material that has some advantage in a specific environment. But there are very clear limitations to such changes. (Go to Sean’s website for more details.)
If we study history with any kind of objectivity, it’s fairly clear that humanity has not “evolved” to some higher form of being kinder, gentler, more loving or more moral. Quite the opposite. History bears out a continuous “falling” into a deeper and deeper morass of moral and social disintegration, only interrupted now and then by the overthrow of one “civilization” by another that still had the value of self-discipline. Right now, though, there’s no other civilization in sight to “take over” for another few hundred or a thousand years. It seems to me that the next one to take over is the one that Nebuchadnezzar saw as a stone that smashed the great image and grew to fill the whole earth.
Forgive me Inge but I think it would be impossible for me to stop asking such questions and jump on an established faith wagon. All religions appear to me to be evolving social constructs.
Said like a true social evolutionist. 😉 You are giving away your deeply embedded bias here. 🙂 And that’s going farther than most evolutionary biologists who do not necessarily subscribe to social evolution.
Does this disparage the individual’s experience with God? No, I don’t think so because it is individual for each person. That is why I respect your experience of faith, as I do my Catholic friends, my Muslim friends, my Buddhist friends, my Adventist friends, etc.
Spoken like a true “post-modern.” 🙂
I pray that in your “real life” you may meet up with Christians who truly demonstrate the Christ life in their own life. As it did to a former atheist (now pastor) of my acquaintance, that could make all the difference to you. And by the way, this young pastor is every bit as intellectually alive and curious now as he was in his days of atheism/agnosticism. Only now he sees much more room for his intellectual explorations. 🙂
What I hope is that the agnostic viewpoint can help to provide a bit of reflective perspective for those of faith so they can better understand and appreciate each other. Time will tell if my goal is quixotic.
I think you’re doing a great job of providing perspective and asking good questions. 🙂
Recent Comments by Inge Anderson
Northern California Conference Votes to Act Independent of the General Conference
Sean, while I don’t currently have time to address all the issues in your post, one thing concerns me greatly – that, as head elder, you would recommend that your church members should use their tithe as a tool of political action.
If your recommendation were followed by others, hundreds of thousands of people would be justified in not turning in tithe at all because they believe that the General Conference is out of line, being manipulated and controlled by a very small number of people. (But that’s another story.) And, really, anyone who disagrees with something done in the conference or the GC would be justified to withhold or re-direct tithe, following your reasoning. I do hope that you will decide that you “just cannot go there.”
When Jesus commended the widow who gave her last two coins, the “church” was as corrupt as it ever was or will be. Yet God recognized the gift as given to *Him,* and He blessed her and millions of people since then.
When we return our tithe to the Lord, I believe we must do it in faith, letting go of any control of how it is used. If administrators misuse it, they must answer to God. When we don’t return to God what already belongs to Him, we must answer for it. The way I see it, since the tithe already belongs to God, it is not ours to manage.
Offerings are another matter. If you feel your local conference is out of line, you are free not to send them the usual percentage for the conference budget and send it elsewhere.
God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy
The direct URL for Cindy Tutsch’s article is http://ssnet.org/blog/2011/09/does-it-matter-how-long-it-took-to-create/
God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy
Lydian: There is something else I would like for someone to tell me—
Where in the world is the GRI in all of this? I have searched the internet and find virtually nothing there that would attract anybody to what it has to say–if it has anything to say.
Good question.
There are a number of Adventist sites that deal with science supportive of the biblical world view, Sean Pitman’s among them.
It seems that the only Adventist university that has a site supportive of a biblical world view in science appears to be Southwestern Adventist University.
Their Earth History Research Center features research papers as well as material quite understandable to lay persons. I recommend clicking through their links to see what is there.
Perhaps this is where we should look (and perhaps send our dollars) instead of the GRI. You will see that Ariel Roth, former director of the GRI (when it was more supportive of a biblical world view) is part of the Earth History Research Center.
May God abundantly bless the efforts of all who are connected with this project.
PS Currently http://ssnet.org is featuring an article by Cindy Tutsch entitled, “Does It Matter How Long God Took to Create?”
Professor Kent: This is but only the faith of Sean Pitman’s straw man. This is not the faith of the Adventist who accepts God’s word at face value.
Sean is correct in his characterization, because that seems to be the kind of “faith” that has been championed here by a number of individuals who have faulted Sean for presenting evidence in favor of creation having happened just thousands of years ago.
If you accept the interpretation of evolutionists who believe (by faith) that life began on this planet some billions of years ago and then “by faith” believe that God created the world a few thousand years ago, you are essentially asserting “faith” in what you intellectually recognize as being a falsehood. That’s a good sight worse than a child’s “faith” in Santa Claus, because the child doesn’t “know from evidence” that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.
I do accept God’s Word at face value, and because I accept it at face value, I know that all the evidence, rightly interpreted, will support the historical account in God’s Word. It is an intellectually consistent stance, whereas asserting belief in both evolutionism and biblical creation contravenes all rules of logic and intellectual integrity.
If you really do believe that the Genesis account is a true account of history, why do you characterize Sean’s presentation of scientific evidence to support the Genesis account as being anti-faith??
La Sierra University Granted Window to Show its Faithfulness to Church’s Creation Belief
This is encouraging, IMO.
However, the survey of students probably presents a more favorable picture than is realistic, since a significant percentage of the students may not even know what the Adventist position on creation is — considering the kinds of homes they are coming from. But even if they all knew, a 50% rate of believing that SDA views were presented is pretty dismal. That’s a failing grade, after all ..
