Comment on The hinge of our faith by Sean Pitman M.D..
Bravus: It is an attempt to use the ‘unthinkability defense’ – it’s unthinkable that all of SDAism is wrong, therefore, since it is all tied to creationism, creationism must be right. But it can backfire horribly: if someone is forced by the evidence to consider that perhaps God chose to create the earth and life by mechanisms other than speaking it into existence in 6 days 6000 years ago, they are then also forced – by this rhetorical strategy where creationism is described as being the single leg on which the edifice of SDA doctrine stands – to feel constrained to throw it all away.
Basically you seem to be saying that the SDA Church is taking a big risk by making definitive statements about what it does and does not believe to be “true” – right? How scientific! Don’t you see that this very thing, being risky, is the very root of scientific thinking?
If you stand for nothing that is risky, that can at least potentially be proved wrong, what good are you? What good is your “faith”?
Also, if your faith does not go beyond basic ethical principles, upon what do you base your hope in the reality of a bright physical future? Where is the evidence for the rational validity of the “hope that is within you”?
In short, if the SDA position on a literal 6-day creation is indeed shown to be false, the unique message of the SDA Church, a message which is uniquely different from any other denomination, also goes away.
This uniqueness and reason for independent existence is indeed based on a risky position, subject to potential falsification – as is any good scientific position. Many religious groups believe in some form of God and good moral ethics. However, the SDA Church is unique and has a reason for unique independent existence because it goes beyond these basic truths to include additional truths which are also important to share with the world. If these additional truths are shown to be false, then what is the point for continued independent existence of the SDA Church?
“The Church has one foundation – ’tis Jesus Christ our Lordâ€. If we’re going to balance the whole church on one foundation, there’s no competition: Jesus is it. A particular view on origins is not.
Without evidence in support of who Jesus actually was, the simple argument that “Jesus is it” is distinctly unhelpful. It was Jesus who referred to the Genesis narrative in very literal terms. It was Jesus who demonstrated the creative power of God without the need for vast ages of evolutionary time. It was Jesus who instantly turned water into wine. It was Jesus who showed sympathy for the weak and those who weren’t the “fittest” for survival – to include animals. It was Jesus, in his life and testimony, who argued very strongly against the basis of modern evolutionary thinking.
So, if you accept modern evolutionary thinking, you really have no basis to rationally accept Jesus as anything other than a good, but very ordinary, man – not God.
It was C.S. Lewis who pointed out the fallacy of this thinking:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. – Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.
The fact is that the SDA Church goes beyond the promotion of the virtues of basic morality. The SDA Church is also about presenting a solid hope in a very real and very bright physical future for those who love God – i.e., the Gospel of Hope. It is possible to be a good morally upright person and not have a solid conscious hope in the future you know. Such a person will end up being saved, but how much better to have known the Good News here and now?
This is what makes the SDA Church more than just a promoter of good ethics. This is also what requires the SDA Church to be at least someone scientific in its thinking and apologetic arguments in support of the Gospel message…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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Recent Comments by Sean Pitman M.D.
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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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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.
