“How do you know that you are moved by the …

Comment on Ted Wilson: No Room for Evolution as Truth in Adventist Schools by Sean Pitman.

“How do you know that you are moved by the Holy Spirit in a reliable manner when it comes to your faith in some of the claims of the Bible? – while my LDS friends are not? Why are your feelings of truth so much superior to theirs?” – Sean Pitman

Are you a teacher in Israel and do not know what faith is? I accept empirically I can never know that I am superior to LDS and as a Christian I am not called to know my superior position or logic I am call to be a follower of God in Christ.

So, why then are you a Christian rather than a Latter-day Saint? – or why should anyone else pick one over the other when presented with both options? Because of some “gestalt” feeling that you cannot distinguish from what the LDS believers say they are feeling when they hear “the truth”? Why then should I listen to you rather than them? You don’t know? Why are you arguing with me then? Why don’t you argue with them? Because you don’t like anyone telling you that some faiths are more reasonable than others? Why not just quietly follow your own view of “Christ” in your own mind without saying anything at all about your faith to anyone else? If you have absolutely no reason as to why one should follow your form of Christianity rather than any other religion (i.e., Mormonism, Hinduism, Islam, Catholicism, Buddhism, etc.) why then are you trying to convince me that I’m wrong in my religion? – if you don’t consider your form of Christian faith superior how do you know you’re right and I’m wrong? Because your form of Christianity gives you a better feeling? – a better gestalt? How do you know that your feelings apply to me or anyone else? I should listen to your gestalt feelings as somehow superior to my own understanding of things because… why again?

Since you brought it up, remember that when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus in the garden at night (John 3:1-21) the conversation was about “rebirth” into a spiritual morality (as compared to the natural human tendency to “MTU”) – a spiritual morality based on the Royal Law where one is enabled to actually love the truths that one knows. It was all about a “love of the truth”, especially moral truths that are internally derived as a gift of God, and how to achieve that love. It wasn’t about how to determine empirical truths in the first place – such as how to determine the truth of the Divine origin of the Scriptures or the literal 7-day creation week. Otherwise, only certain types of Christians could be saved if knowledge and acceptance of such empirical truths were required. It is because such empirical knowledge is not required for salvation that even the heathen who have never heard the story of Jesus or anything in the Bible can be “reborn” through the power of the Spirit into a true observance of the Royal Law – and be saved (Romans 2:13-16).

You see, it isn’t that I think that I’m personally better than you or anyone else on a moral level. I’m not, and I know that full well. I’ll be singing “Amazing Grace” louder than anyone else if I ever find myself in Heaven someday. However, I do think that my religion is better and offers a much more solid hope in the future that is well beyond anything else that I know. If I didn’t believe this, I wouldn’t feel the need to share the “hope that is within me” with anyone else. Why would I want to share something that I didn’t believe was superior to what those around me have? If I didn’t think what I had to say would be for their advantage, why would I say anything about my faith to anyone else? Why did Jesus Himself ask His disciples to spread the “good news” of the Gospel if this Gospel message wasn’t clearly superior to everything that the world already had? – a message of a solid Hope that is in fact superior to anything else that any other religion has to offer? He didn’t just “call them to be followers of God in Christ” in some sort of private club. He called them to share what they had seen and heard, the empirical evidence that had been especially given to them to know, with those around them, to win converts to Christianity, so that others might also share in the special hope that an empirically-based faith in Jesus offers.

In short, if you don’t believe that the story of Christ and the hope that this story gives you is superior to what other religions offer, why say anything to anyone about it? Why even try to fulfill the commission of Jesus to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15)?

Hebrews 11 is a good place to start to understand faith. As Kierkegaard does in “Fear and Trembling” consider Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice his only son Isaac at the insistence of God? Did this act have the imprematur of logic reason and empirical evidence. I certainly do not think so yet it is the ultimate example of faith and we would concede the type of God’s action in human existence.

I suppose then, if I get a strong enough feeling or gestalt or voices in my head that the Holy Spirit is impressing me to kill one of my boys, that I should follow this “gestalt” feeling? That’s pure insanity!

You seem to forget that Abraham talked face-to-face with God – “as to a friend”. He actually saw Christ in human form (along with His angel companions) and heard the empirically audible voice of God. Abraham knew that audible voice. It wasn’t just in his mind. Since when has God spoken to you with an audible voice? or showed up at your house to talk to you face-to-face? Also, Abraham was told that he would be given a miraculous sign, additional empirical evidence which both Abraham and Isaac saw, when they came to the spot where Abraham was to offer up Isaac – to confirm the Divine command.

So, was Abraham acting on faith here? Of course he was! However, he wasn’t acting on blind or fideistic or illogical faith. He had many past experiences with God – empirically tangible interactions with God that supported God’s credibility regarding His empirical claims. Abraham was given a great deal of very good evidence, empirical evidence well beyond what most of us have ever experienced, as to the Source of the command and its credibility. Abraham’s faith was therefore based on strong empirical evidence that gave him a solid trust and confidence in God’s word and His promises regarding Isaac (i.e., Abraham believed that even if he had to sacrifice Isaac that God would raise Isaac back up from the dead in order to fulfill His promises regarding Isaac). Otherwise, Abraham would also have been insane – the locked up forever in an mental institution variety.

This is the type of faith in God that we should cultivate – faith based on the weight of empirical evidences that God has given us along the way to know that He exists and that He cares deeply for us and our situation and will one day make everything new as it was originally intended to be. Such an empirically-based faith is what the disciples had after they saw the Resurrected Christ with their own eyes and touched Him with their own hands. They simply did not have this kind of faith in Christ and who He claimed to be before this empirical evidence of the Resurrection was given to them. And, God does not expect anything more from us either. God does in fact understand the importance of the weigh of empirical evidence when it comes to establishing a solid faith that can withstand the trials of this life or enable one to be willing to put one’s own life, and even the lives of one’s dearest loved ones, on the line.

God may indeed reveal the Royal Law of Love and people may inwardly aspire to a notion of goodness but there is of course the HPTFTU , a thing I would consider original sin. The natural state that we see evident daily in the blood thirsty selfishness equally manifest in acts of empirialism and barbary on the plain of Megido. That is the result of being right and superior and calls for the acts of redemption of a gracious God.

I totally agree that HPTMTU, or the “Human Propensity to Mess things Up”, is very real. However, it has been given to us to know, as a miracle of god, when we are messing things up on a moral level. If we had no sense of right vs. wrong, we wouldn’t be able to have a sense of HPTFTU or selfishness (i.e., sin). This sense of moral right and wrong, a conscience, is therefore a Divine gift that is given to all to know as an internal moral compass. And, it is by this moral compass that we will one day be judged.

What this means is that we are not judged on our correct understanding of empirical knowledge. Empirical knowledge will not be the basis of salvation. The only question that will be asked in the Day of Judgement is, “Did you follow the Royal Law of Love that I wrote on your heart?” – i.e., Did you have a love for the truth that you did understand?

This is good news because it means that the honest Buddhist, or the honest Catholic, Latter-day Saint, Muslim, agnostic or even the honest and sincere atheist who lived according to the Royal Law of Love for one’s fellow man can be saved.

What this does not mean is that this internal sense of moral truth is therefore able to reveal to us various empirical truths – such as the superiority of the Christian perspective or the Divine origin and correct interpretation of the Bible. It cannot tell us if neo-Darwinism is right or wrong or if there was a literal 7-day Creation Week or if a Noachian Flood really happened. It cannot tell us if there was a Virgin Birth or if Jesus was in fact the Son of God. These claims, if true, are empirical realities that exist outside of ourselves. The truth or error of these claims cannot be accurately judged among competing options via the Royal Law or some other form of subjective internal “gestalt” feeling. The intelligent mind must be used to weight empirical evidences to see if the weight of these evidences appears to us to support or undermine certain options among all of the other competing options.

In any case, I really don’t see the point in discussing why you think I’m wrong any further when you can’t even tell me why I should recognize your position as superior to the claims of any other religious group or perspective? – when you yourself are telling me that you have nothing to offer that is clearly superior to anything else out there?

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Ted Wilson: No Room for Evolution as Truth in Adventist Schools
As I’ve pointed out before, there are a lot of books claiming to be “The Word of God”. How do you know that the Bible’s claim, among so many competing options, is true? – based on a feeling? That’s how you know? Did an angel show up and tell you that the Bible’s claims are true? – or how to interpret it? Were you born with this knowledge? or did you have to learn it? If you had to learn that the Bible’s claims are true, upon what did you base your learning? – and how did this basis of your learning help you distinguish the true from the false?

At first approximation, the Bible is just a book making a bunch of claims. How can you tell the difference between the origin of the Bible and the Book of Mormon or the Qur’an? In order to determine that God had anything to do with its creation, you have to read it and make judgments about it. If you base your judgments on some kind of deep feeling or gestalt sensation of truth, I say that this isn’t a reliable basis for a leap of faith. However, if you base your acceptance of the claims of the Bible on rational arguments that make sense given what you already think you know to be true, then you have yourself a much more useful and helpful basis for faith… as the Bible itself recommends.

God does not expect us to believe or have faith without sufficient evidence to establish a rational and logical faith in the claims of the Bible. Have you not read where the Bible challenges the honest seeker for truth to “test” even the claims of God? (Judges 6:39; Malachi 3:10; John 14:11; etc…). We are not called to blindly accept anything as true, not even the Bible. The claims of the Bible must be tested to see if they truly are what they claim to be – i.e., the Words of God.


Ted Wilson: No Room for Evolution as Truth in Adventist Schools
I haven’t changed my mind. I still see atheism as the most logical alternative to Christianity and any other view of God if such views of God are only based on a wishful-thinking type of fideistic faith. Why should one be a Christian or believe that the Bible is anything more than a good moral fable? – or believe that God exists any more than Santa Claus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists? For me, it’s because I see real empirical evidence for God’s existence as well as His Signature within the pages of the Bible and within the universe and the world in which I find myself.

You see, we are called to have an “intelligent trust” in God’s Word – a trust that is based on something more than a deep feeling or internal gestalt. Otherwise, you’re really in the same boat as my LDS friends with their “burning in the bosom” argument for faith in what is or isn’t true.

Now, it is possible to doubt the Divine origin of the Bible while still recognizing the Divine origin of the universe – based on the weight of empirical evidence. This is where quite a number of modern physicists are in their view of God. And, it is a reasonable position given the honest conviction that life and its diversity can evolve via the Darwinian mechanism of random mutations and natural selection over long periods of time to produce what we have today on this planet.

So, there are different “levels” of recognition when it comes to seeing God’s hand behind various phenomena. And, once His Signature is recognized at a different level, the implications and responsibilities change for us. It’s a “first step” toward God to recognize a Divine Signature behind the origin of the universe and the natural laws that govern it. However, once one recognizes the Divine Hand behind the origin of the Bible and the credibility of the Bible’s empirical claims, one is called to experience different responsibilities and privileges in a higher level walk with God – “in Spirit and in truth”.


Ted Wilson: No Room for Evolution as Truth in Adventist Schools
Again, there are somethings that, if seen in vision, cannot be easily misinterpreted. If you see that “there was light” then “there was darkness” and that this pattern of was used to mark off a series of seven days, that’s pretty hard to get wrong or misinterpret. Mrs. White also confirms these biblical claims by arguing that God specifically showed her that the creation week was a literal week “like any other”.

So, what needs to happen now is see which claims among competing claims are most likely true. Where does the “weight of evidence lie”? If the claims of neo-Darwinism are true, then the claims of the Bible aren’t just a matter of honest misinterpretations – they are either completely made up fabrications or they are outright lies – from God.

I will say, however, the Darwins observations did help to shed light on the Bible. For example, there were those who believed in the absolute fixity of the species – that nothing could change and that no new species of any kind could be produced by natural mechanisms. Darwin showed, quite clearly, that this interpretation of the Bible was false. So, Darwin’s discoveries did shed light on the Bible’s comments about reproduction “after their kind”. However, the Bible sheds light on Darwin’s claims by showing the clear limitations of Darwinian-type evolution – to very low levels of functional complexity over a short period of time (i.e., not hundreds of millions of years of evolution).

Again, we have science and Scripture shedding light on each other…


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!


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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…


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Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…


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Where did I “gloss over it”?


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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.

Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).

Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.