WASC Reviews LSU’s Accreditation
@Faith: Faith, good luck getting pauluc to acknowledge that faith and science must not be separated. I’ve been trying to get Jeffrey Kent to acknowledge that, so far without success.

I don’t see how any real scientist could deny that science relies upon paradigms, models, theories, working hypotheses, etc., and that when it comes to origins, the theory is that God, if there is a God, had nothing to do with the origins of anything, and that a naturalistic explanation must be thought up for the origins of everything.

Jeff Kent has insisted that he is a conventionally believing Adventist, and pauluc now seems to be saying the same thing. Now if you really believe that God created the world and its ancestor life forms in six literal days a few thousand years ago, why would you base your science on the assumption that life evolved by chance over the course of 600 million years? If the Adventist origins scenario is truth, why would an Adventist scientist do science as if it were not truth?

Put another way, if a person is in Los Angeles, and really believes that the way to go to Santa Barbara is to take the 101 to the west, why would the person go east on the 10? We are entitled to conclude that either, a) the person doesn’t really believe that the 101 is the way to Santa Barbara, or b) the person is not really even trying to go to Santa Barbara. Likewise we are entitled to conclude of an Adventist scientist who does mainstream origins science that either, a) he doesn’t really believe in the Adventist origins scenario, or b) he is not really trying to do science to discover truth; he’s just going along with the herd of his peers, going along to get along, trying to not to make waves, just trying to make a living.

WASC Reviews LSU’s Accreditation
@pauluc: Thanks for elaborating on your cryptic post. I disagree that Educate Truth or anyone associated with it is painting with a broad brush, ala “kill them all and let God sort them out.” Shane and Sean have not made a blanket complaint about all the Adventist colleges, only the one that they have personal knowledge about: LaSierra. Likewise, they are not calling for all the professors to be fired (or any, for that matter), just for honesty and transparency about what is being taught. I wouldn’t like to fire everyone either, but I would like to find out which of the professors are Darwinists, and ask them to find, within a reasonable period of time, say two years, somewhere else to pursue their careers.

You argue that we are defenders of the status quo, but the real status quo is not creationism but Darwinism. A Darwinist can go almost anywhere without being molested. Darwinists control almost all major colleges and universities, museums, foundations, newspapers, media outlets, etc. But there is no “academic freedom” in these places. Anyone who openly advocates for creationism commits immediate career suicide. The fact that there is no tolerance of creationists in almost every worldly academic perch is a good reason why it is important for SDA colleges to be centers for creationist science. At least at our colleges, there should be freedom to pursue origins science within a biblical framework or paradigm. Creationist scientists need safe academic environments; Darwinists already have many thousands of such places.

You’ve falsely stated that I want to see LaSierra lose its secular accreditation. I do not. But at the same time, I recognize that LaSierra has no real reason to exist if it is merely duplicating the philosophy of education, and in particular, science, that controls hundreds of state universities. LaSierra was established by Adventists to provide education that is Adventist in philosophy and content, not to provide–at far greater expense–what is already being provided by the public university system. I disagree with your conception of a university as being of necessity a place where faith is undermined. If that were true, then there is no reason for Adventists to sponsor universities. But the source of all wisdom and truth is God, and true education does not undermine the Word of God or the Christian faith of the students.

You’ve argued that accredited colleges are necessary as feeders to Loma Linda, but why is Loma Linda necessary? Loma Linda made sense when the “medical work” was functioning as a missionary arm of the church (I’d say until about 40 years ago). Today, the Adventist hospitals are profit-driven businesses; they do not emphasize even in the slightest degree the lifestyle reforms advocated by Ellen White, but practice conventional, Western, acute care medicine. Eventually, they will be nationalized (shortly after the country figures out that we cannot be economically competitive with countries that spend 10% of GDP on health care while while we lavish 17% going on 20% of GDP on health care). All this is a roundabout way of saying that I reject your argument that we must tolerate Darwinist biology departments in order to have accredited colleges to feed Loma Linda. That argument carries no weight.

This discussion does highlight a very important distinction between believing Adventists versus cultural Adventists (who make up the vast majority of the Seventh-day Darwinians. To the believing Adventist, what is important is the faith, and the incredibly beautiful way that all the doctrines fit together and support each other. To the cultural Adventist, what is important is the institutions–the schools, colleges, hospitals, conferences and unions–that the faith has spawned, and the jobs and social networks that these institutions provide. To the believing Adventist, the institutions exist to further the mission of the church, which is to maintain, nurture, and spread the faith. To the cultural Adventist, the institutions are paramount, and must be protected even at the cost of severely compromising or even losing the faith. The cultural Adventist and the believing Adventist are never going to see eye to eye, because their value systems are radically different.

WASC Reviews LSU’s Accreditation
@pauluc: pauluc, your sarcasm and unsubtle attempts to attribute to me what I did not say diminish the joy of dialoging with you.

I do not think there is anything inconsistent with plenary biblical belief in the teaching, studying or practicing of medicine. The incredible design of the human body testify that its designer possessed a genius far beyond mere human capacity. And the plethora of diseases and injuries that the body is subject to testify that an enemy has also been at work in the creation.

In general, Western science has largely been the product of Christian men, who were typically also creationists. They had faith that the universe would be intelligible and work according to logical, understandable laws and principles, because such qualities were associated with the Creator-God they knew from the Bible. Now science seeks to separate nature from nature’s Creator, but the very principles that ensured that the creation would be intelligible and work according to ascertainable laws also demand that it had a creator. There is no free lunch.

I think you vastly underestimate the extent to which mainstream origins science is warped by its rigid adherence to naturalism. The basic premise of abiogenesis, or life from non-life, was discarded some 150 years ago after conclusive experimentation and observation by Pasteur and several others; as the decades have passed, and we have learned more about the complexity and genius of life at the cellular level, the hypothesis of accidental self-organization has become even more absurd and anti-rational. It remains part of mainstream origins science only because of the warping effect of the rigid control of philosophical naturalism over origins science (yes, I know the difference between methodological and philosophical naturalism, and there is no difference when it comes to origins).

To the extent that “education” is a threat to the church, it is only because modern origins science insists on telling only one side of the story, and effectively indoctrinating Darwinism, which is the new orthodoxy from which no deviation is permitted. This merely highlights the need to make Adventist colleges become centers for creation science and Christian origins apologetics. Having an “Adventist” college where the professors indoctrinate Darwinism is simply corporate suicide on the part of the SDA Church. It is saying, “hurry up and kill me, already!”

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@pauluc: “Science has no opinion on whether God or the supernatural have never intervened . . .”

Not true, Paul. When science insists on abiogenesis, even though there is no empirical or logical reason to believe that it could happen, science is expressing an extremely strong– in fact absolute–philosophical opinion that if God exists, to exist is all God has ever done. If Science were open to the existence of a Creator God who had ever created or otherwise intervened in nature, science could easily say, “God created the first life forms, then evolution took over.”

But, of course, the entire purpose of evolutionary science is to be able to deny the existence of a Creator God without looking foolish. It has not been entirely successful. Because when people claim that life can accidentally self-assemble, or that the genetic code somehow wrote itself, they look foolish.

LSU Responds to Issues Regarding Dr. Diaz and WASC
@Professor Kent: Jeff, the messenger of the Lord for our time is Ellen White, and you should be familiar with her warnings regarding Lyellism and Darwinism. If not, some of the more pertinent passages are set out in chapter 7 of my book, “Dinosaurs — an Adventist View.”

In promoting an atheistic origins narrative in opposition to the biblical, Adventist view of a creation in six literal days a few thousand years ago, La Sierra is flagrantly disregarding the Lord’s messenger for our time. I should think this would be obvious to you.

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Professor Kent: Jeff Kent says, “Recognizing the error in much of apologetics does not equate to blind faith. Twisting every fact to fit a theory about a supernatural event that cannot be duplicated by the naturalistic approach of science is simply misinformed belief based on a fragile faith devoid of the surety . . .”

But twisting every fact to fit a naturalistic theory is okay? Because that’s exactly what mainstream science does.

For example, everything in human existence, absolutely without exception, shows that you never get a code without a codemaker. You never get music without a musician, writing without a writer, computer code without a programmer, etc. Yet mainstream science insists that we got the genetic code, which is more complex than all of the foregoing, without a designer. That’s what I call “twisting every fact to fit” into science’s philosophy of naturalism.

Why is it okay for mainstream science to twist facts to fit its theories but not for creationist to construe and interpret the data of nature in accordance with revealed truth?

God wants you to be fully converted, in both heart and mind. And it doesn’t matter which is converted first. Some people have a heart experience that eventually results in them changing their views on origins, while others see design in nature and it leads them to the God of nature. Either is okay.

But you seem to be “halting between two opinions.” You believe in God and have a relationship with Christ, but that relationship has not converted your mind or your approach to your profession. You insist on doing your scientific work in a way that effectively denies what you claim to believe. It would be too rude to say you lack integrity, but clearly your Christian beliefs are not integrated with your work life; there is no integration between your faith and your work.

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Professor Kent: “What do you think is the single most compelling geological, fossil, or biological evidence that life arose via fiat creation?”

I think it is the genetic code. Coded information–written books and articles, computer programs, musical compositions, etc.–never arises accidentally but always has an author. And the genetic code is a language of such complexity and genius that we’re still trying to figure it all out. I don’t think the genetic code wrote itself any more than I think “War and Peace” wrote itself, or “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” wrote itself.

The second best evidence is life itself. Even single-celled organisms are so staggeringly complex that accidental self-organization and self-vivification would involve a miracle. Science cannot do this in a laboratory much less come up with a generally agreed upon “just so story” (that passes the laugh test) as to how it could have happened accidentally.

The other thing in the realm of biology I would point to is the difference between humans and animals. The gap there is very large, and supports the biblical teaching that man was created in the image of a Creator God, whereas the animals were not.

The fossil record is ambiguous, but the Cambrian Explosion fits the Flood model far better than it fits the Darwinian model. It’s not what Darwin expected at all; he even admitted that the fossil record from the Cambrian on up should be matched by an equally long fossil record leading up to the Cambrian. (This doesn’t directly bear on fiat creation, but does compare Bible history to the natural history Darwin posited.)

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Professor Kent: Jeff Kent said, “Evolutionists believe there is a designer, and that it’s a random process rather than a supernatural being.”

That’s nonsense. Design implies teleology, intent, and purpose, all of which evolutionists deny a priori. Evolutionists officially believe that the world and its life forms did not require a designer but arose from random processes.

And, frankly, whenever the Darwinists use teleological language like “design” and “designer,” we should call them on it and force them to use language that reflects what they officially purport to believe.