“science and religion are inextricable.” Denver, you and Sean Pitman are …

Comment on Adventists are virtually silent by David Read.

“science and religion are inextricable.”

Denver, you and Sean Pitman are exactly on the same page. He thinks science and religion are so inextricable as to be essentially the same thing.

I disagree. Your argument about missing links in the fossil record sounds compelling to me, but is easily overcome by the faith of the evolutionist. Likewise, my faith that the fossil record is largely the residue of the Genesis Flood is not at all shaken by the order of the fossils or the absence of human fossils in lower levels (or any fossils of the type of antediluvian Ellen White writes about). Both sides paper over the holes in their evidence with faith.

It is all about faith. Not blind faith, because we all have objective facts, reasons, and arguments to support our faith. The Darwinist has his reasons and arguments, too, but ultimately he, like me, is exercising faith.

David Read Also Commented

Adventists are virtually silent
“what then separates the atheist from the Christian?”

The Christian by faith believes in God and Christ. The atheist has access to the same arguments for the existence of God as the believer, but rejects them; if he is a thinking man, he rejects them in favor of a self-created universe, i.e., mainstream science. Everyone makes a choice.

“Has the God you worship (have faith in) created a world in which people are reduced to flipping a coin to decide what SORT of faith to have?”

I don’t know how faith works, and why some believe in God and some do not. I don’t think it is only because the faithful have access to better arguments. As I said, the atheists have access to those same arguments and reject them. I do not believe in predestination, but Calvinism couldn’t very well have become so widespread if it were obvious and easily explainable why some choose God and some reject Him.

“I am not sure how you could persuade anyone that they SHOULD be a Christian using your approach?”

Using personal testimony and Christian apologetics, same way you would try to persuade them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

“I dont ‘paper over’ any holes in my faith,”

I didn’t say “holes in faith.” I said we all paper over holes in the evidence with our faith. If the evidence were airtight, we wouldn’t need faith, faith wouldn’t even enter into it. We have to exercise a little faith because the evidence is often ambiguous or inconclusive.

“Do you have the same problem, with professors teaching evolution as if it were fact in an Adventist university, that I have?”

Yes, I do. Adventist colleges exist to promote the Adventist faith and mission, NOT to be an expensive duplication of the public school system. Since both Darwinism and creationism are at their core faith-based theories of origins, Adventist colleges should teach the one that is integral to the Adventist worldview and belief system, to wit, creationism. To teach Darwinism as truth undermines the whole structure of Adventist doctrine, and militates against the purpose of Adventist education.

On the other hand, if our origins could be nailed down with certainty, if it isn’t even a matter of faith but of science, then we’d better withhold judgment until we get to the bottom of it. I’ve noticed that one of the favored arguments of the apologists for Darwinism at LaSierra is that Adventism is really about searching for and discovering the truth, wherever that search takes us, and what the Darwinists at LaSierra see in nature points to the truth of evolution as an explanation for origins. If the truth is out there waiting for science to discover it, who’s to say that argument is wrong?

That argument is wrong because the truth is not out there, it is in the Bible, and we have to approach and interpret what is out there with an unshakable faith that what God is telling us in His Word is truth.

“God has permitted a flood of light to be poured upon the world in both science and art; but when professedly scientific men treat upon these subjects from a merely human point of view, they will assuredly come to wrong conclusions. . . . those who leave the word of God, and seek to account for His created works upon scientific principles, are drifting without chart or compass upon an unknown ocean. The greatest minds, if not guided by the word of God in their research, become bewildered in their attempts to trace the relations of science and revelation.” PP 113


Adventists are virtually silent
@Paul Giem:

Paul Giem, would you please email me at dcread@pacbell.net. I just sent you an email at an lllumc.edu address, but it bounced. I’m interested in your origins Sabbath School series at Loma Linda.


Adventists are virtually silent
Michael, I think you’re exactly right. There’s such a huge reservoir of good faith, and the assumption of good faith in anyone or anything bearing the name Adventist, that it is just hard for the average Adventist in the pew to accept what is really, actually happening at LaSierra. The Review article is a good start, but it will take that times 10 before the average Adventist allows himself to accept that a major Adventist institution has been hijacked by Darwinists. And I totally understand that. It does seem surreal and impossible.


Recent Comments by David Read

The Reptile King
Poor Larry Geraty! He can’t understand why anyone would think him sympathetic to theistic evolution. Well, for starters, he wrote this for Spectrum last year:

“Christ tells us they will know us by our love, not by our commitment to a seven literal historical, consecutive, contiguous 24-hour day week of creation 6,000 years ago which is NOT in Genesis no matter how much the fundamentalist wing of the church would like to see it there.”

“Fundamental Belief No. 6 uses Biblical language to which we can all agree; once you start interpreting it according to anyone’s preference you begin to cut out members who have a different interpretation. I wholeheartedly affirm Scripture, but NOT the extra-Biblical interpretation of the Michigan Conference.”

So the traditional Adventist interpretation of Genesis is an “extra-Biblical interpretation” put forward by “the fundamentalist wing” of the SDA Church? What are people supposed to think about Larry Geraty’s views?

It is no mystery how LaSierra got in the condition it is in.


The Reptile King
Professor Kent says:

“I don’t do ‘orgins science.’ Not a single publication on the topic. I study contemporary biology. Plenty of publications.”

So, if you did science that related to origins, you would do it pursuant to the biblical paradigm, that is pursuant to the assumption that Genesis 1-11 is true history, correct?


The Reptile King
Well, Jeff, would it work better for you if we just closed the biology and religion departments? I’m open to that as a possible solution.


The Reptile King
Larry Geraty really did a job on LaSierra. Personally I think it is way gone, compromised beyond hope. The SDA Church should just cut its ties to LaSierra, and cut its losses.

As to the discussion on this thread, round up the usual suspects and their usual arguments.


La Sierra University Resignation Saga: Stranger-than-Fiction
It is a remarkably fair and unbiased article, and a pretty fair summary of what was said in the recorded conversation.