Comment on Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution? by Bob Helm.
The issue is that she did not try to place her visions of heaven and unfallen worlds into a scientific paradigm of a big bang,an expanding universe that is expanding at an increasing rate and creating space as it expands into nothingness.I am not supposing she was stupid but she was a product or her times not the late 20th century where the Adventist church is facing a secularism based on science as the basis of philosophical naturalism.
I gladly affirm that Ellen White was a product of her times – the 19th and early 20th centuries. So unless God showed her something of the things you describe, I would not expect her to know anything about them, and I see no evidence that God did reveal these things to her. I believe that Ellen White received genuine visions and dreams from God, but their purpose was not to make her an astro-physicist. Their purpose was spiritual – to be a lesser light to lead people back to the greater light of scripture and Christ – which is the one legitimate purpose of new covenant prophecy after the close of the canon. But in her lifetime, it was common knowledge that moons revolve around planets, and planets revolve around stars. So when she described seeing beings on other planets who love and serve God, and she stated that these inhabited worlds existed before the angelic rebellion in heaven, I have to conclude that Ellen believed in the existence of an intact universe that existed before creation week. This isn’t hard to understand; it is simple and straightforward logic. But why are you telling me that she didn’t know anything about an expanding universe or the Big Bang? I never remotely suggested that she did. However, that is irrelevant to what we are discussing. Ellen White could have easily believed that the universe existed before creation week without having a knowledge of these esoteric scientific issues, and I submit to you that if her words mean anything, that was her position.
Do you suppose she even thought about where these planets were relative to the reach of the naked eye the Hubble telescope or radiotelescopes?Do you?Are the inhabited worlds within our solar system, within our galaxy or even within the expanding universe that we attempt to understand.Is Gods throne-room even a place within our physical universe?If we sent a space probe through to Orion would we be able to eventually end up where God dwells and the place from which the heavenly city will descend. That cube of 2,330 Km in each dimension that when present on our earth would extend well beyond our atmosphere.
Paul please – Ellen White died in 1915, and neither the Hubble telescope nor radio telescopes existed at that time. In fact, Edwin Hubble himself was just beginning his work about that time. I see no evidence of inhabited worlds in our solar system, and I have no idea where they are located, although some earth-sized planets have been discovered recently that seem to be the right distances from their stars to support life. But when Ellen White spoke about inhabited worlds, I have to assume that she understood them as existing within our universe because that was the only universe she knew about and the only one we know about today. I take heaven to be a real place; however the apostle Paul’s description of three heavens – the atmosphere, the realm of the stars, and the dwelling place of God – leads me to suspect that the third heaven (God’s dwelling place) is outside the confines of our universe. In saying that. I am not questioning heaven’s reality or that we will exist there as physical beings, but I suspect that it is extra-cosmic. I’m doubtful that it is on a planet revolving around a star called Kolob, as Jopeph Smith claimed, or anything similar to that – because stars and planets are located in the second heaven, not the third. As far as the new Jerusalem is concerned some of its aspoects may be literal and other symbolic.
The essential question is how do we reconcile what we understand physically through empirical science with our understanding of God and revelation.You know by now how I do that by considered that spiritual claims are understood spiritually by an act of faith.And our physical universe can be understood by a process of explanation by natural law and process.Science and religion differ in both objective and method.As Sacks would say religion is about understanding the meaning and why science about understanding the how. Haught models it as layers of understanding and meaning.We can understand why things happen by natural process but that does not give us the ultimate significance.Even if an event can be understood mechanistically as occurring by natural law that does not detract from understanding it as an act of God done to His Glory and to His good purpose. From this perspective the creation is an act of God even if there is a process involved.I would see process in the creation of life and the universe over long periods of time. That there was process does not detract from its attribution to God.You iike Sean seem to see some process only in the creation of the physical universe up to the point of the crucible for life.
I agree with much of what you have written here. However, there are some things that are too complex to arise through processes. Sean and I both believe that life is one of these things. Things that have come into existence via direct intelligent design rather than through processes give evidence of their intelligent design through certain tell-tale markers, as Sean has repeatedly pointed out. Furthermore, there is simply no evidence for abiogenesis. So again, I am quite content to admit that God has used processes, but in the creation of the universe itself and in the creation of life, I see Him taking a more direct role because that is what His word claims and where the scientific evidence points.
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Bob Helm Also Commented
Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Mike Manea: Mike, the problem is not a lack of evidence for the creationist model. The problem is the hold that the Lyell/Darwin model has on the scientific community, including all the psychological baggage that goes with it. This is not just a theory; this is a way of viewing all of reality (much like a religion), and for many people, it has great psychological appeal. For this reason, it is naive to think that it can be overthrown in a few years. However, the evidence for the creationist/catastrophist model continues to mount, and those with open minds are willing to at least examine it.
Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman: I think you are correct. Thanks!
Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Ervin Taylor: Can you supply us with your coauthor, as well as the publisher. I would also like to obtain your book and read it. Thanks!
Recent Comments by Bob Helm
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
What is wrong with conceding that many claims of scripture can only be accepted on faith?I fully realize that 21st century scientists cannot perform X rays of Mary’s womb or insert instruments into her womb to determine exactly what took place when the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. Of course, I accept the virgin birth on faith! My point was that we now have examples of virgin births occuring as a result of modern scientific technology, and since science has now produced virgin births in mammals, if God is real, we have an analogy for how He could have done the same thing. @Professor Kent:
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Darwinist is just short for Neo-Darwinist. While the majority of biologists subscribe to Neo-Darwinism, I would contest your statement that Darwinist=biologist. I prefer “Darwinist” to “evolutionist” because the latter is a slippery term. Even creationists believe in micro-evolution.@pauluc:
Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
@Sean Pitman: Sean, it’s interesting and ironic how churches repeatedly try to become more relevant by accepting Darwinism and other forms of liberalism, but in the end, they always die, while churches that maintain their creationist stance and conservative values continue to grow.
Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
@pauluc: I wondered if you would bring up alchemy. Just because Newton was wrong about alchemy, why try to slur him over it? Even though he was a great physicist, he was human, and he did make mistakes!
Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
@Pauluc: Actually, there is one extrabiblical reference to Jesus’ Resurrection. In his “Antiquities of the Jews,” we have this from Flavius Josephus: “When the principal men among us had condemned Him [Jesus] to the cross, those who loved Him at first did not forsake Him. For He appeared to them alive again the third day. . .” This so-called “Testimonium Flavianum” has provoked fierce debate, with critics calling it an interpolation. However, it is written in the style of Josephus and appears in all the extant Greek manuscripts of “The Antiquities of the Jews.”
