Comment on A big reason why so many people are leaving the church by Sean Pitman.
David Reed,
You wrote:
“I’m not saying that the natural world does not speak to the power and attributes of God; certainly it does. God’s two books complement each other. But nature doesn’t prove creation, the existence of God, or the divine origin of Scripture in a logically rigorous, compulsive way. It is still necessary to have faith in God, his Word, and its teaching that God created the world in 6 days in the not too distant past. Faith is still crucial and indispensable to the enterprise.”
Again, while nothing is absolutely provable, nature, or empirical evidence, suggests, quite strongly in a logically rigorous if not a “compulsive” way, that there is a God and that the Bible is in fact the written Word of God.
Anything that is believed about the nature of the world that exists outside of the mind, to include the notion that the Bible is the Word of God, requires a leap into that which is not absolutely known or knowable. If such leaps are taken without any empirical basis in physical reality, they are blind and their likely success or failure cannot be judged to any rational degree. If, however, such leaps are taken based on at least some empirical evidence and rules of rational thought, the predictive value of such leaps can be determined, ahead of time, to some useful degree of confidence. While perfect confidence can never be reached, a useful faith, regarding external realities, is always based on at least some empirical evidence and rational thought.
This suggestion is in direct opposition to the claims of Phil Brantley who is arguing that even if the Bible claimed that 2+2=5 or that the Earth was flat that he would believe the Bible despite what his senses were actually telling him about the world. It is for this reason that his faith in the Bible is entirely blind to empirical reality – entirely immune from even the potential of falsification since he has defined the Bible, and his own interpretations of the Bible in particular, as true “by definition” – immune from any form of critical investigation, testing, or even the potential of falsification.
From my own perspective, I don’t find faith that is completely blind and independent of empirical realities to be useful or helpful when it comes to establishing a solid hope in a bright literal future. However, if one assumes Brantley’s position on empirically-blind faith, the rest of his conclusions are logical – to include his suggestion that it really doesn’t matter what the LSU science professors are teaching their students about the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence in favor of Darwinian evolution. It doesn’t matter because faith, according to him, is entirely independent of empirical evidence. It is only because the poor students are ignorant of this fact that so many of them mistakenly let empirical evidence actually affect their faith. How ignorant is that?
“But I wonder how it doesn’t occur to you, when you use phrases like “honest, open and sincere heart”, that this is not the language of science, but of faith. If something can really be proved, it doesn’t matter how sincere anyone’s heart is. When we speak of a sincere heart, we’re talking about the qualities of faith, not of reason and logic.”
Such statements suggest a degree of naivete regarding how science really works. There are many examples were scientists have been less than forthright with what they knew the evidence was actually saying. Yet, true science that actually produces the highest predictive power for hypotheses regarding the external world must be done with the highest degree of honesty that one can muster.
Also, your oft-repeated suggestion that science/empiricism, or my position in faith, is about absolute proof is mistaken. There is no such thing as absolute proof when your talking about the nature of the world that exists outside of the mind. It is for this reason that all notions of the reality that exists outside the mind are open to the potential for falsification.
This is contrary to Brantley’s position on faith since his faith is not open to even the potential for falsification, for being wrong. His faith is true and right “by definition”.
I suggest to you that it is actually a more humble position to at least admit the possibility of error when it comes to faith in anything – even the Bible and the various interpretations of the Bible that one may entertain as being potentially true.
“As to the Ravi Zacharis story, I’ve never argued that apologetics is not needed when we have the Bible. To the contrary, I strongly believe in apologetics and believe we need to do a much better job of it in the Adventist Church. The creation/evolution controversy is within the domain of apologetics, as are many other areas. Creationism is basically Christian apologetics and Darwinism is basically atheist apologetics. My problem with those who want to teach Darwinism in Adventist schools is that they are essentially engaging in atheistic apologetics when the church is paying them to promote the Adventist faith, an opposite philosophy and worldview.”
Yet, if the SDA faith is not, or at least need not be, based on any form of empirical reality and rational thought or apologetics, then there really is no problem with theistic or atheistic apologetics being presented in SDA classrooms. If apologetic arguments really have nothing to do with one’s faith, if one’s faith can truly exist independent of the significant weight of empirical evidence and the rational interpretation of that evidence, then who cares what scientists say about that evidence? After all, given Brantley’s position, science and faith are completely separate enterprises where one is not at all involved with or dependent upon the other.
For most people, especially well-educated young people, this clearly isn’t the case. Science and faith are very closely tied together. Science dramatically affects the faith of a great many of our youth – and rightly so. For the honest intelligent mind, a mind that is honestly seeking to know and follow truth, it is irrational, not at all attractive, to suggest that a useful or correct faith is actually so opposed to what otherwise seems like an overwhelming weight of empirical evidence.
In short, the philosophy of the virtues of empirically-blind faith, a faith that is not truly dependent upon the weight of empirical evidence, will end up killing the Church. The youth of the Church simply aren’t going to buy into this notion to any significant degree… and I, for one, don’t blame them.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Professor Kent:
Rejection of the Seventh-day Sabbath because of a rejection of the clear reading of the Genesis account of origins is a rejection of the nature of inspiration of the Bible that Mrs. White (and the SDA Church) was trying to promote. Such a rejection completely changes the picture of God in one’s mind and the nature of the Bible as well as the Bible’s power to change one’s life and one’s world perspective. The Bible means something very different if it is viewed as a allegory vs. if it is viewed as literally true on those topics where the author(s) clearly intended to be taken as describing real historical events.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Professor Kent:
There are many different ways to “believe in the Bible” that are completely opposed to the type of belief or faith that Mrs. White was trying to promote. Many believe that the Bible is a book of good moral instruction, but has nothing of any real value to say about the physical world. Many believe that the Bible is a collection of man’s best wisdom over the centuries, but is not actually the Word of God.
What Mrs. White was talking about is that a belief in mainstream evolutionary theories destroys a belief in the Bible as the clear Word of God on every topic it touches upon – to include the topic of origins. The evolutionary perspective undermines faith in the character of God that Ellen White understood and which the SDA Church is trying to promote. It undermines faith in the reasonableness and rationality of God – suggesting that God is willing to “command men to observe the week of seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike his dealings with mortals, and is an impeachment of his wisdom.”
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Shane Hilde:
Exactly! Not even Abraham was asked to believe in the naked word of God devoid of empirical evidence that would appeal to the rational candid mind. God was not offended when Abraham asked for this evidence because without such evidence, Abraham would truly have been insane to simply follow voices in His head claiming to be the voice of God without any external empirical confirmation…
There are false spirits out there that will lie to us. These spirits must be tested. And, the only basis upon which to employ and interpret tests is our God-given human reasoning abilities.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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