Comment on Ted Wilson: No Room for Evolution as Truth in Adventist Schools by Sean Pitman.
And yet you have no empirical evidence that once creation was perfect and there was no death or decay. All the scientific evidence we have suggests the latter state has always been but you accept wholeheartedly fiat creation. Why? Because that offers you hope and redemption.
The scientific evidence suggests that this situation of constant death could not have always been – because of the problem of genetic deterioration over time for slowly reproducing creatures. This discovery of science strongly suggests that originally living things were superior than they are today, consistent with the Bible’s claims, adding to its credibility.
In fact, the Bible has proven itself to be highly credible for those empirical claims that it makes that are actually testable. It can therefore be reasonably argued that it is also quite likely that it is credible in its claims that cannot be directly tested as well. And, according to the Bible, there was no death or decay for sentient creatures before the Fall. Some argue that plants obviously suffered “death and decay”, as would have to happen simply by eating something – like an apple. This isn’t the type of death I’m talking about. There are lots of what I like to call “biomachines” or life forms that are not sentient – that cannot experience suffering. No one cares if these machines “die” or are “recycled”.
And that is fine, but it is not scientific. Of course your rationalization is to talk about the ‘ credibility of the Bible’ but that is not scientific proof of the iterated God depicted therein. That is why Bill Sorenson and Pauluc are correct with their view that science can only take one so far when it comes to believe in God and one must trust the ‘word’ of God or the ‘spirit’ gestalt of God.
Again, there is no such thing as “scientific proof” for anything. No scientific hypothesis or theory is definitively provable. What science provides is the “weight of evidence” upon which one can make a reasonable “leap of faith” and say that this or that conclusion is “most likely true given the evidence so far in hand.” The very same thing can be said about the claims of the Bible and the Bible’s overall credibility. And, as already noted, the discovery of inevitable genetic deterioration within slowly reproducing gene pool only adds to this credibility – as does the empirical reality that the Darwinian mechanism is incapable of generating qualitatively novel functionality beyond very low levels of functional complexity. All this is very good scientific evidence that strongly supports the claims and overall credibility of the Bible.
Like you I think any proclaimed ‘ word’ of God or phenomenologically spiritual experience is subjective, hence unreliable as proof, of God. Yet, I don’t think science can prove or disprove God. Of course your answer to this is that science can prove design in the universe, hence a designer, hence a God like being, hence the most credible source of its intervention in human affairs is the Bible, hence the most reliable, recent prophet is Ellen White, hence the best interpretation of all that YLC and there you are! That’s a lot of ontological dominoes or turtles all the way up! But at the end of the day- because you deeply feel it! – that is the path you are going to follow it no matter what scientific evidence there is to to the contrary to your quite unique position.
My feelings on the matter don’t change where the turtles are headed. This observation is not limited to me, but is open to all who actually investigate it. It is therefore not a “subjective” feeling if others have access to the same information. Just a few relatively basic empirical observations (such as the conclusions that 1) the extremely fine-tuned features of the universe are best explained by a God-like creative power 2) the observation that evolutionary progress is extremely limited to very low level of functional complexity and 3) slowly reproducing creatures are inevitably degenerating over time) is enough to cause the candid mind to seriously reconsider the claims of the Bible since only the Bible, among all religious texts, explains all of these phenomena.
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…
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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.
