Comment on Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science by Sean Pitman.
The “shut door” argument has been around a long time. Ellen White was well aware of it and addressed it several times herself.
“Seventh-day Adventist pioneers and E. G. White freely and firmly declare that immediately following the disappointment of October 22, 1844, Advent believers generally held that their work for the world was finished and that probation had closed. Ellen White and Adventist pioneers also declare that while this was generally believed, that neither the first vision [in December of 1844], or any other vision given to Ellen Harmon-White taught that probation had closed for the world generally, but that it had, for those who had rejected the light of the first angel’s message, or having been in the Advent Movement had abandoned their confidence in the fulfillment of prophecy.”
In 1883 Ellen White addressed this argument herself by writing:
For a time after the disappointment in 1844, I did hold, in common with the advent body, that the door of mercy was then forever closed to the world. This position was taken before my first vision was given me. It was the light given me of God that corrected our error, and enabled us to see the true position. I am still a believer in the shut-door theory, but not in the sense in which we at first employed the term or in which it is employed by my opponents. There was a shut door in Noah’s day. There was at that time a withdrawal of the Spirit of God from the sinful race that perished in the waters of the Flood. God Himself gave the shut-door message to Noah:
“My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:3).
There was a shut door in the days of Abraham. Mercy ceased to plead with the inhabitants of Sodom, and all but Lot, with his wife and two daughters, were consumed by the fire sent down from heaven.
There was a shut door in Christ’s day. The Son of God declared to the unbelieving Jews of that generation, “Your house is left unto you desolate” (Matthew 23:38).
Looking down the stream of time to the last days, the same infinite power proclaimed through John:
“These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth” (Revelation 3:7).
I was shown in vision, and I still believe, that there was a shut door in 1844. All who saw the light of the first and second angels’ messages and rejected that light, were left in darkness. And those who accepted it and received the Holy Spirit which attended the proclamation of the message from heaven, and who afterward renounced their faith and pronounced their experience a delusion, thereby rejected the Spirit of God, and it no longer pleaded with them.
Those who did not see the light, had not the guilt of its rejection. It was only the class who had despised the light from heaven that the Spirit of God could not reach. And this class included, as I have stated, both those who refused to accept the message when it was presented to them, and also those who, having received it, afterward renounced their faith. These might have a form of godliness, and profess to be followers of Christ; but having no living connection with God, they would be taken captive by the delusions of Satan. These two classes are brought to view in the vision–those who declared the light which they had followed a delusion, and the wicked of the world who, having rejected the light, had been rejected of God. No reference is made to those who had not seen the light, and therefore were not guilty of its rejection.
— Ms 4, 1883 in Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 63, 64.
For additional information on this topic see: Link
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science
Again, the basic ability to recognize love and exhibit love does not “have to be taught” by parents. A child will also naturally feel guilty for doing harm to another – without the need to be taught about feeling guilty for doing wrong. On the other hand, if you were correct, those who did not have good parents, or had no parents at all, would have an perfect excuse before God for why they didn’t choose to act lovingly toward their neighbors. They would feel no guilt or remorse for anything wrong that they did. After all, according to your argument, no one is born with a conscience – or an inherent knowledge of any kind of moral right or wrong to any degree. You claim that the conscience does not exist at all before one is taught, by one’s parents. You claim that there is no way to know right from wrong unless one is taught by some outside source of information. However, in reality, no one has such an excuse because all are in fact born with an internally-derived conscience regardless of the goodness or training, or lack thereof, of one’s parents.
It is a studied fact that a very young child naturally knows what is right regarding the Royal Law of Love on at least a very basic level… and is naturally attracted to it. This knowledge is hardwired – by God. That is why, yet again, Paul described this ability among the heathen as “natural” – not something that they had to learn from their parents, but understood by having the Law written on their hearts by God (Romans 2:13-15). This Biblical claim is actually backed up by modern research that shows that very young babies do in fact have an innate sense of right and wrong (Link).
And, Ellen White also speaks of children having a God-given conscience that must be considered in their training. They are not like animals that are born without a conscience:
The training of children must be conducted on a different principle from that which governs the training of irrational animals. The brute has only to be accustomed to submit to its master; but the child must be taught to control himself. The will must be trained to obey the dictates of reason and conscience. – Ellen White, January 10, 1882
So, here we have a child being born with inherent God-given gifts of both reason and conscience. Such gifts are created as internally-derived gifts by God. Call it “hocus pocus” of you want, but God is in fact a Divine creator who is well able to create such gifts with no less ability than He is able to create the universe or the complexities of the living human body. Therefore, it is not the parents who create the original ability for “enmity” against evil within their children. Parents do not get the credit for this basic ability to judge right from wrong. After all, it is God who said that He is the one who would create this enmity against sin within the human race (Genesis 3:15). He did not leave this up to us to create within our children. It is God and only God who creates the conscience in each one of us. Our responsibility toward our children is to train them on how to apply, maintain, grow, and guard their God-given gifts of reason and conscience. We nurture the plant that God has made, so to speak, but we did not create the original seed from which the plant was made able to grow.
Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science
And we see that God “puts” grace and enmity between Satan and the children of Adam. It is not something naturally passed on from Adam to his offspring.
Of course it is God who puts the enmity between us and Satan. It is a miraculous act on the part of God. However, the fact remains that God has given us to recognize and understand the “beauty of Holiness”, to know good from evil, from birth. Now, it is also true that all children are born with a fallen nature. However, this does not negate the fact that God has also given them to be born with an inherent God-given knowledge of right and wrong.
Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science
“Fundamentalism”
One more thing Paul. As far as one of your favorite pejorative charges of “fundamentalist” is concerned, not everyone who believes in the fundamental claims of a group or organization is “fundamentalistic” when it comes to why one believes this or that or in the arguments used to support and promote one’s position to others. In other words, there is a difference between what one believes and why one believes it.
For example, the “reasons” for your faith are identical to the reasons that my fundamentalist friends of various religions have for their faiths. You all appeal to an internal feeling or “gestalt” type of sensation as the basis of your faith. That’s very different from the reasons I give for why I believe the way I do – i.e., based on “the weight of evidence” that is empirical, testable, and potentially falsifiable.
To illustrate further, you believe in the fundamental claims of neo-Darwinism. Does that make you a “Darwinian fundamentalist”? Not in and of itself – at least not with regard to why you believe like you do or the arguments you might use to defend your Darwinian position. It all depends upon the reasons why you believe that the main claims of this or that group are most likely correct. Are your beliefs based on reasonable and/or logical arguments? Are they based on what you perceive to be the weight of empirical evidence? Are your beliefs at least potentially falsifiable? If so, you’re really not “fundamentalistic” in why you believe like you do or the way you try to promote your position.
The same can be true for the Christian and even for the Adventist…
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
Science and Methodological Naturalism
Very interesting passage. After all, if scientists are honest with themselves, scientific methodologies are well-able to detect the existence of intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. It’s just the personal philosophy of scientists that makes them put living things and the origin of the fine-tuned universe “out of bounds” when it comes to the detection of intelligent design. This conclusion simply isn’t dictated by science itself, but by a philosophical position, a type of religion actually, that strives to block the Divine Foot from getting into the door…
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Why is it that creationists are afraid to acknowledge the validity of Darwinism in these settings? I don’t see that these threaten a belief in God in any way whatsoever.
The threat is when you see no limitations to natural mindless mechanisms – where you attribute everything to the creative power of nature instead of to the God of nature.
God has created natural laws that can do some pretty amazing things. However, these natural laws are not infinite in creative potential. Their abilities are finite while only God is truly infinite.
The detection of these limitations allows us to recognize the need for the input of higher-level intelligence and creative power that goes well beyond what nature alone can achieve. It is here that the Signature of God is detectable.
For those who only hold a naturalistic view of the universe, everything is attributed to the mindless laws of nature… so that the Signature of God is obscured. Nothing is left that tells them, “Only God or some God-like intelligent mind could have done this.”
That’s the problem when you do not recognize any specific limitations to the tools that God has created – when you do not recognize the limits of nature and what natural laws can achieve all by themselves.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Bill Sorensen:
Since the fall of Adam, Sean, all babies are born in sin and they are sinners. God created them. Even if it was by way of cooperation of natural law as human beings also participated in the creation process.
God did not create the broken condition of any human baby – neither the physical or moral brokenness of any human being. God is responsible for every good thing, to include the spark or breath of life within each one of us. However, He did not and does not create those things within us that are broken or bad.
“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'” Matthew 13:27-28
Of course, all humans are indeed born broken and are in a natural state of rebellion against God. However, God is not the one who created this condition nor is God responsible for any baby being born with any kind of defect in character, personality, moral tendency, or physical or genetic abnormality. God did not create anyone with such brokenness. Such were the natural result of rebellion against God and heading the temptations of the “enemy”… the natural result of a separation from God with the inevitable decay in physical, mental, and moral strength.
Of course, the ones who are born broken are not responsible for their broken condition either. However, all of us are morally responsible for choosing to reject the gift of Divine Grace once it is appreciated… and for choosing to go against what we all have been given to know, internally, of moral truth. In other words, we are responsible for rebelling against the Royal Law written on the hearts of all mankind.
This is because God has maintained in us the power to be truly free moral agents in that we maintain the Power to choose, as a gift of God (Genesis 3:15). We can choose to accept or reject the call of the Royal Law, as the Holy Spirit speaks to all of our hearts…
Remember the statement by Mrs. White that God is in no wise responsible for sin in anyone at any time. God is working to fix our broken condition. He did not and does not create our broken condition. Just as He does not cause Babies to be born with painful and lethal genetic defects, such as those that result in childhood leukemia, He does not cause Babies to be born with defects of moral character either. God is only directly responsible for the good, never the evil, of this life.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Again, your all-or-nothing approach to the claims of scientists isn’t very scientific. Even the best and most famous of scientists has had numerous hair-brained ideas that were completely off base. This fact does not undermine the good discoveries and inventions that were produced.
Scientific credibility isn’t based on the person making the argument, but upon the merits of the argument itself – the ability of the hypothesis to gain predictive value when tested. That’s it.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Don’t be so obtuse here. We’re not talking about publishing just anything in mainstream journals. I’ve published several articles myself. We’re talking about publishing the conclusion that intelligent design was clearly involved with the origin of various artifactual features of living things on this planet. Try getting a paper that mentions such a conclusion published…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
