That’s a good question Jere. I too wonder how …

Comment on Board requests progress reports from LSU administration by John Howard.

That’s a good question Jere. I too wonder how LSU’s documents pertaining to tenure are worded. Even the secular state-supported university where I teach has limits on the protection that tenure provides. From the faculty manual at my institution:

“A faculty member who is the beneficiary of institutional guarantees of tenure shall enjoy protection against unjust and arbitrary application of disciplinary penalties. During the period of such guarantees, the faculty member may be discharged or suspended from employment or diminished in rank only for reasons of incompetence, neglect of duty, or misconduct of such a nature as to indicate that the individual is unfit to continue as a member of the faculty.”

So certainly there are justifications for terminating the employment of tenured professors even at secular universities, and the bar hasn’t really been set all that high. I would think that the teaching of evolution as fact at an SDA institution qualifies as “incompetence, neglect of duty, or misconduct of such a nature as to indicate that the individual is unfit to continue as a member of the faculty.” And I would hope that LSU has similar language / measures in place. Their standards should be set at least as high as those found at a secular school.

John Howard Also Commented

Board requests progress reports from LSU administration
Stephen V.,

I find it somewhat amusing that you would think to “talk down” at me as though I didn’t understand the English language. I’ve spoken, read, and written it for around a half-century now, and your patronizing attitude hardly does anything to support your argument.

Find your nearest english grammer teacher and ask him or her what this sentence is saying.

There’s a good example of what I mean. Condescension writ large. By the way, just so you’ll know — I’m an instructor at a fairly large university, and one condition of employment is that my English proficiency (including comprehension) be at a level significantly above that of the average person. Not trying to toot my horn, that’s just a fact. Consequently there’s not a great need for me to be consulting with an English teacher right now, especially not at the prompting of someone who evidently isn’t familiar with the proper spelling of the word “grammar,” or the rules governing the correct capitalization of words like “English”! (See the blockquote above, from your previous post.) That old saying about rocks and glass houses comes to mind… 🙂

Once again, your contention that something can be equal to, yet at the same time unrelated to, something else flies in the face of common sense and logic. God does not require blind faith, and John 20:29 doesn’t indicate that Jesus wants us to be blind in our belief without recourse to any evidence whatsoever. Granted, it does show that He wants us to take some things on faith without visible evidence, but it would take the expunging of a great many Biblical events to establish that He would have us to go through life without any evidence at all. As Paul wrote, for example, “Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not:…” 1 Cor. 14:22. God does give evidence in attempts at persuasion, with respect to His existence and the truths of the gospel of Christ. He prefers that people would believe Him without needing such evidence, sure. But some people need more persuading than others, as I said above, so He gives them what they need. Jesus did satisfy Thomas’ ‘requirement’ after all, didn’t He? John 20:25-27.

So contrary to what you’re saying here, I still think you’re misconstruing the plain meaning of what Paul wrote in Heb. 11:1, and misconstruing it pretty badly.


Board requests progress reports from LSU administration
Hi Stephen — I want to be respectful too, but you’ve just made what I consider to be quite an erroneous statement:

Faith “IS” the evidence of things not seen. He is not saying that faith and evidence are linked.

Now that’s like saying, “A = B, but A and B aren’t related.”

I hope you can see the fallacy in what you wrote there. God most assuredly gives us evidence upon which to base our faith. It’s all around us.

I would also maintain that “reasoning together” in Isaiah involves looking at the evidences of God’s love for us. It takes some people longer than others, y’know? Some need to review the evidence, to look at the facts of the matter before having a change of heart. Certainly God is aware of that facet of human nature, and makes allowances for it.


Board requests progress reports from LSU administration
I would say that faith and evidence are linked, since Paul did:

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

Isaiah recorded a related concept:

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:…” Isaiah 1:18

And He’s given us plenty of reasonable evidence upon which to base our faith — prophecy, the book of nature, the phenomenon of a changed life when one accepts Jesus as his/her personal savior.