Monthly Archives: January 2012

Enns on Experts, Evolution, and Evangelicals

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Disclaimer:

While this blog entry mentions Peter Enns new book, I want to be upfront. I have not read this book and this post is not a review of that book.

Peter Enns, author, blogger, and Senior Fellow of Biblical Studies for BioLogos has released a new book called The Evolution of Adam. No stranger to controversy over his previous writings, this book is aimed at trying to harmonize the Biblical record of Adam and human origins with the theory of evolution. To promote the book Enns has recently written a piece for the Huffington Post entitled Once More, with Feeling: Adam, Evolution, and Evangelicals.

In this article he tackles three themes:

  • If evolution is correct, than the Biblical narrative regarding creation and Adam/Eve is not.
  • Evangelicals wrongly assume that the Adam and Eve story is about “human origins”
  • People who are not trained as scientists are not able to evaluate scientific arguments.

These themes are dealt with in more detail through numerous posts on his blog so we will examine them in that context.

If evolution is correct, than the Biblical narrative regarding creation and Adam/Eve is not.

The first theme is dealt with in the blog entry Evangelicalism and Evolution ARE in Serious Conflict. In this post Enns compares evangelicals who claim there is a conflict between these ideas and those who do not find “anything to lose sleep over”:

One advantage that the first group has over the second is the frank admission that evolution poses a serious challenge to how Christians have traditionally understood at least three central issues of the faith: the origin of humanity, of sin, and of death. That is true.

I argue in my book that sin and death are undeniable universal realities whether or not we are able to attribute them to a primordial man  who ate from the wrong tree. The Christian tradition, however, has generally attributed the cause to sin and death to the first human, Adam. Evolution claims that the cause of sin and death, as Paul understood it, is not viable. That leaves open the questions of where sin and death come from.

On this point, I am in agreement with Enns – “evolution cannot simply be grafted onto evangelical Christian faith”.  We will examine that a bit more when we examine the next section.

Evangelicals wrongly assume that the Adam and Eve story is about “human origins”

In the HuffPo article, Enns contends that:

[Ancient peoples’] creation stories were more like a warm-up to get to the main event: them. Their stories were all about who they were, where they came from, what their gods thought of them and, therefore, what made them better than other peoples.

Likewise, Israel’s story was written to say something about their place in the world and the God they worshiped. To think that the Israelites, alone among all other ancient peoples, were interested in (or capable of) giving some definitive, quasi-scientific, account of human origins is an absurd logic. And to read the story of Adam and Eve as if it were set up to do such a thing is simply wrongheaded.

Enns explains in the post Evangelicals, Evolution and their Bible that that this “wrongheadedness” stems from how we interpret the Bible:

Those false assumptions begin when we forget that the Bible is ancient literature that speaks from an ancient point of view.  An awareness of the Bible’s ancient cultural influences–even a minimal awareness–helps alert us to the kinds of questions the Bible is prepared to answer. Science is not among them.

He goes on to say that the problem with evangelicals is that they consider it “unworthy of God to speak through ancient stories of origins that are neither historical nor scientific.”

Before diving into whether Adam/Eve is about “human origins”, I think we can find some areas of general agreement. The Bible does use non-historical stories to make theological points. Some clear-cut examples of this might be Nathan confronting David with his sins through a story or Jesus’ use of parables. The Bible also uses poetic imagery to make theological points. An example would be the psalms or Isaiah 55 where mountains break into song and trees are described as clapping their hands. And no, the Bible is not a science text book. We should not expect to find the theory of special relativity or quantum mechanics explained in its pages. Nor should we expect descriptions of how cells work or how DNA is structured.

However, Christianity is a faith based on historical events and the Bible records historical events and scientific information. Dealing with the topic at hand, Genesis 1-3, whether a historical account or a mythical story, is about human origins. Enns, himself, states that the ancient creation stories were told to answer questions including where the people came from and what their place in the world is. The real issue is not whether the account answers these types of questions. The issue is does this account give us a narrative that provides answers to these questions that are historically accurate or just provide a story to make a theological point.

If one accepts that God spoke to prophets and inspired the writing of the Scriptures I would argue  that it is “absurd logic” to think that the Bible was not capable (as Enns does above) of providing a basic account of human origins in a manner that could speak truth to both ancient and modern cultures with vastly different scientific capabilities.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth …  God created humankind  in his own image … – Genesis 1:1; 1:27 (NET)

The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,and the man became a living being. – Genesis 2:7 (NET)

From these passages it should be clear that this narrative is all about origins. While the Bible does not explain how this happened in a way that would be satisfying to a modern scientist these are clear and understandable statements that convey the ideas God created the universe and that man is unique among the rest of creation. It does answer the questions where did we came from and what is our place in the world. It also explain the why as in why are we special and why do we need a Redeemer.

The general story is man was created good but disobeyed God. The result was sin and death entered the world. However Israel as a nation was set apart by God to receive the Law, the prophets, and the Messiah through whom salvation would come. God is the Creator of the universe and would send His Son, Jesus, to be our Savior. If Genesis 1-3 are a story without any historical basis then Israel’s place in the world (as well are our own) certainly does start to unravel.

If this story is a myth intended to answer these questions without providing a historic and scientifically supportable basis then we are left with more questions about where we came from and what our place is in the world is than it answers. Some questions that come to mind are:

  • why did God use this story to communicate that humankind was created uniquely from of the rest of creation if there is no historical basis to it?
  • what theological truths was it intended to communicate if it is a myth and evolution is true?
  • if humankind evolved from other species than what makes us different from any other life form?
  • what did God mean to communicate through the curses in Genesis 3?
  • why did Jesus come to save humankind (and from what) if we are just another evolved life form?
  • if Jesus came to save us from death then why did He create us through death from the start and call it good?
  • if Jesus came to reconcile us to God then why did He create us as enemies of God from the start and call it good?

Why would God open the Bible with this mythical story when He could have provided a more accurate account to answer these questions? I know that this particular line of questioning – why didn’t God say ____ more clearly – is not always helpful. In this case my point is not that God should have explained our origins more clearly but that He could have. It was possible for God to have provided a story that describes His guiding the creation process through something that we might recognize as evolution rather than describing man as being crafted out of dust by His own hands. For example wouldn’t the statement below be understandable to an ancient reader even without advances in genetics or other sciences and be closer to the truth if evolution is right.

God formed the man from the beasts of the field. He created humankind by taking them out of these beasts.

And perhaps just as important, why does the OT and NT deal with this story as if it had a historical basis? This is not just a matter of Paul’s explanations of sin and death entering through Adam in Romans 5 or 1 Corinthians 15 either. A short list:

  • Why do the genealogies of 1 Chronicles start with Adam (1:1) as does the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (3:38)?
  • Why is Abel (along with Enoch and Noah) in the Hall of Faith (Heb 11)?
  • Why does Jesus refer to the creation event and Adam/Eve when discussing God’s intention for marriage and divorce (Matt 19)?
  • Why does Paul refer to the creation event and Adam/Eve when discussing God’s intention for marriage and the church (Eph 5)?

While the book may explore and attempt to provide answers to these theological questions in the light of evolution, the starting point that it is “absurd logic” for anyone to conclude that the account of Adam/Eve is intended to tell us about our origins or that it may have a historical basis seems wrongheaded.

[We will cover the third point in part 2]

Jesus’ return and the science of reentry

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Atlantis rentering earth's atmosphere (from space station)


Over at the Jesus Creed, a lively discussion over Jonah and the whale has been going on.

http://twitter.com/#!/scotmcknight/status/159362241655877633

The question posed is what would happen to Jonah if he was really swallowed by a fish? The post then quotes an article describing what happens to a person who was swallowed by a sperm whale, here is a portion of that grisly tale:

As the stomach acids broke you down, you would continue through three smaller stomachs — a chain of membranous, acid-filled cavities. The second stomach is S–shaped, and the third is more like the first, only smaller. Then, liquidated, you would ooze into the intestine, and eventually leave the whale as excrement, floating out of the anus and into the cold deep ocean, dissolving still further until you had become so small as debris that you were indistinguishable from the ocean itself. You would lap against whaling ships looking for whales.

The article from which the quote is taken challenges the reader “Still, you’d like to think it’s possible”. The implication here is that it is improbable (impossible?) for a person to survive this experience. While  there are certainly more important things to take away from the book of Jonah – like how to manage our anger and while a discussion can certainly be had as to the literary genre (historical narrative or a parable) it is interesting to see that many are willing to dismiss the possibility of the story as history (at least in part) based on the scientific evidence that one would simply be digested.

In an attempt at humor I can imagine this same group puzzling over how Jesus might fulfill his promise to return (Matt 24:29-31; John 14:3) given the scientific evidence for what happens to objects that go through the earth’s atmosphere:

Launching a spacecraft into space is one thing. B­ringing it back is another. Spacecraft re-entry is tricky business for several reasons. When an object enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it experiences a few forces, including gravity and drag. Gravity will naturally pull an object back to earth. But gravity alone would cause the object to fall dangerously fast. Luckily, the Earth’s atmosphere contains particles of air.

When it enters the atmosphere, it starts hitting these molecules of air which aren’t moving very much. Since the spaceship is moving very very fast, it hits each molecule of air very, very fast like a car hitting something on the road. The higher up in the atmosphere, the fewer molecules it hits; the closer to the Earth, the more molecules it hits. This is called friction.

This friction causes the object to experience drag, or air resistance, which slows the object down to a safer entry speed.

The disruption of it’s velocity energy expended with each molecule it hits turns into heat. The deeper into the atmosphere it gets with a great amount of speed, the greater the heat since it’s hitting more molecules at a time the faster it goes.

Specifically, shuttles face intense temperatures of about 3000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1649 degrees Celsius)

[Mashup Source: HowStuffWorks and Wiki.answers]

Science can demonstrate that without heat shields, parachutes, and proper reentry angles a person returning from space would have a pretty tough time getting back to Earth. Using only what we know of science then imagine the scene given descriptions of Jesus returning on a white horse wearing only a robe.

I have no problem with the science here and also no problem placing my hope on the promise of His safe return, because the fact is Jesus is the One through whom all things were created and is also the One who sustains the very universe. Miracles by definition defy science. Otherwise they would not be miracles.

When Jesus encountered the stubborn rich, young, ruler who walked away from Him, He tells the disciples that it is difficult for the wealthy to enter the kingdom, in fact it is basically impossible. The disciples are stunned. Then Jesus tells them:

With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. – Mark 10:27

Far harder than preserving a man in a fish, is the changing of man’s stubborn selfish heart. And since God can do that  (I am living proof) I also believe He could have preserved Jonah through the ordeal of being swallowed by a fish.

He sustains the Universe

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I have been reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. It is a relatively older book having been originally published in 1999 with a new edition released in 2003. The author is ambitious aiming to explain to a general audience the major advances in physics regarding the makeup of the universe and the contradiction involved in some of the theories (special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics) that string theory hopes to overcome.  Having read the first three chapters I am impressed with how Greene has explained the most complex of concepts using everyday examples. Math is certainly not one of my strong subjects (understatement of the year and it just got started) but I found myself understanding these concepts (at least more than I did).

NASA

Greene talking about the four fundamental forces of nature discusses the differences in strength between them. The electromagnetic forces are 10 to power of 42 stronger than gravity, while the strong force is 100 x stronger than electromagnetic and 100,000 times stronger than the weak force.  Why is this important:

the universe would be a vastly different place if the properties of the matter and force particles were even moderately changed. For example, the existence of the stable nuclei forming the hundred or so elements of the periodic table hinges delicately on the ratio between the strengths of the strong and electromagnetic forces. … But a rather small change in the relative strengths of these two forces would easily disrupt the balance between them, and would cause most atomic nuclei to disintegrate.

Furthermore, were the mass of the electron a few times greater than it is, electrons and protons would tend to combine to form neutrons, gobbling up the nuclei of hydrogen (the simplest element in the cosmos, with a nucleus containing a single proton) and, again, disrupting the production of more complex elements. (Kindle location 305)

In A Brief History of Time, noted physicist Stephen Hawking wrote:

The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. We cannot, at the moment at least, predict the values of these numbers from theory – we have to find them by observation. It may be that one day we shall discover a complete unifed theory that predicts them all, but it is also possible that some or all of them vary from universe to universe or within a single universe. The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. (p129)

In a Discover Magazine article, several leading theoretical physicists share that view:

an extraordinary fact about the universe: Its basic properties are uncannily suited for life. Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and—in this universe, anyway—life as we know it would not exist. … There are many such examples of the universe’s life-friendly properties—so many, in fact, that physicists can’t dismiss them all as mere accidents.

“We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences, and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible,” Linde says.

…

If [dark energy] had been any bigger, there would have been enough repulsion from it to overwhelm the gravity that drew the galaxies together, drew the stars together, and drew Earth together,” Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind says. “It’s one of the greatest mysteries in physics. All we know is that if it were much bigger we wouldn’t be here to ask about it.”

Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, a physicist at the University of Texas, agrees. “This is the one fine-tuning that seems to be extreme, far beyond what you could imagine just having to accept as a mere accident,” he says.

As science continues to pursue answers to the makeup of the universe and the conflicts in existing theories we must remember that it wrestles with grand ideas that may or may not all hold up to experimentation. In 2010 Greene wrote an article for Discover magazine talking about string theory, space, and time:

For a long time we have been pursuing theoretical ideas like string theory without input from experiment or observation, and that is an unusual way for a science to evolve. In three decades—perhaps sooner with the help of the Large Hadron Collider and satellite-based astronomical observations—I would hope this changes. Should the observations support the theory, great; should they rule it out, that’s great too, because we’d be able to move on, full throttle, to other ideas.

…

And if I allow my imagination to run wild, I would love it if we had some deep insight that let us understand what space and time actually are. We know a lot about the features of space and time, what they can do—but many of us believe these are not fundamental. Identifying the constituents of space and time would be a grand insight.

As I read this book I found myself gaining an even greater appreciation for the intricacies and fine tuning of the universe, but best of all a greater appreciation for the One who created it.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Hebrews 1:1-4, ESV)

When science learns how to explain all of these things even better than they can now it will not change the fact that He is the grand unifier and grand sustainer of it all.

HT: Thinking Christian for pointing out the Discover Magazine article.