A Simple Solution

Here is a short summary of where I am on the issue of women’s ordination in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. For decades I have read multiple studies on the subject on both sides. Many studies on both sides seem very convincing until you read the arguments from the other side. It finally dawned on me that the one thing we seemed to agree on was that the Bible itself never asks the question we are asking, “Should women be ordained to the gospel ministry?” While there are people who disagree with that assertion, no one has been able to point me to a text that actually asks the question, so I continue to hold that position. And there is a good reason for that. Ordination as we know it largely developed in the Middle Ages, so the Bible could not and would not address the question, except perhaps in a prophecy of the future.

In light of that, I observe that in my part of the world NOT ordaining women exacts significant costs on the church’s mission and credibility in the wider community. No one from another part of the world could truly understand or assess those costs. Are those costs worth bearing? Only if the Bible is clear. But the assertions that the Bible is clear are mostly coming from parts of the world that have never studied the question as deeply as I have been forced to study it. I find it interesting that the only substantive studies against women’s ordination in the SDA Church are coming out of North America, the very place that doesn’t generally find those same studies convincing or helpful. And the best arguments against women’s ordination originated with a segment of non-SDAs who have historically been hostile to both Adventism and Ellen White.

I also note that the SDA Church did not adopt ordination as currently practiced from study of the Bible. It was adopted for practical reasons, to validate who spoke for the church and who did not. Today women around the world are hired and trusted to speak for the church in various capacities, even in parts of the world that don’t want to ordain them. But making a distinction between women and men in terms of ordination puts meaning into the act that it never had for the SDA pioneers.

In light of the above I have slowly come to the conclusion that this is one of those issues (like food offered to idols in the NT) that is best handled at the local level. I do not want women’s ordination to be forced on those who would pay a heavy price in their culture for doing so. Similarly, those paying a heavy price for NOT ordaining women should be allowed to assess those costs and act as the Spirit leads. The world will not end and the church will not fall as a result.

To me it seems so simple. Then why is it so hard?

A Few More Thoughts on Hermeneutics (The Science of Biblical Interpretation)

The easy answers provided by selective proof-texting sound pious and “clear” but often don’t stand up to careful investigation. So the weight of evidence causes me to withhold judgment on women’s ordination in the Bible and similar issues. A proof-text reading of the Bible tends toward opposing women’s ordination because there is no explicit proof-text telling us to ordain women (or even giving us the concept of ordination, which was a later development). But there is a trend in the Bible toward justice, fairness and equality that leads me to believe God might have worked with the patriarchy of ancient times (God meets people where they are) without approving of it as the ideal. Today the world is trending toward justice and equality and that reality opens the way to see things in the Bible we hadn’t seen before.

Something similar happened in Acts 10-15. As a result of Peter’s experience with Cornelius, the whole church read the Old Testament differently (see Acts 15:13-18). Very few of those who oppose women’s ordination take a comprehensive view of the Bible. The few that do are forging a new path and I don’t find them very convincing at this point. While I don’t think the Bible settles the issue one way or the other, the trend of God’s working with humanity from Abraham to John the Revelator suggests that ordaining women will not bring about the end of civilization or the work of God on this earth. It actually might be just what the church needs in some places.

Human beings like quick fixes. The perfect proof text, the simple answer that settles everything. But I don’t think that approach does justice to the Word of God. When someone says “the Bible is clear” on a subject like women’s ordination, all I have learned from that is that the Bible is “clear” to that person. It is a fact of human nature that the less we know about any subject the more confident we tend to be in our opinions and conclusions. The confidence so many have in their conclusions on ordination is evidence to me that they haven’t looked seriously at the arguments against their point of view.

This scholarly tentativeness can be frustrating to people of faith, who are used to hearing quick and easy answers to difficult questions. But I think that frustration arises, in part, from a misunderstanding of what true scholarship really is. A true scholar is not someone who knows many things, rather, a true scholar is someone who knows how little he or she knows. It is just as important to know when you are ignorant as to know where you are an expert. Being a scholar is like a farmer standing at the edge of a field. As long as his or her knowledge is limited to the surface of the field, the farmer might seem to know everything there is to know about that field. But scholarship is like the same farmer digging a post-hole at the edge of a field (an analogy for the dissertation). The farmer now knows all (s)he needs to know about the contents of that post-hole. But digging the post-hole teaches the farmer something else. The farmer now knows how deep the entire field goes. By digging that post-hole the farmer’s awareness of ignorance has grown faster than his knowledge.

This is why biblical scholars rarely approach issues with the confidence and clarity that evangelists (like Bohr, Batchelor and Nelson) have. Evangelists have been able to narrow their biblical focus to the things that help them persuade people. This is a very important gift and a very important task. But the church would be unwise to draw its conclusions about the Bible from the limited perspective of the evangelist. While certainty is attractive, it can lead one to a false confidence. As the Apostle Paul said, “We know in part, we prophecy in part, . . . we see through a glass darkly.” Both methods of Bible study (see previous blog for details) are valuable. Both Bible scholars and evangelists have their place. A certain level of confidence is commendable. But the greatness of God suggests we submit our confidence to a reasonable humility.

Coming up: A concise and clear summary of where I stand on the question of women’s ordination and the Bible.

On Biblical Hermeneutics (The Science of Biblical Interpretation)

Recently many people are suggesting that support for a Yes vote at the General Conference is grounded in a “new hermeneutic,” reading the Bible differently than the way the pioneers of Adventism read it. There is some truth in this suggestion and it bears some careful investigation. The implication some suggest is that the new hermeneutic results in a fundamental distortion of the Bible’s message regarding the role of women, a message that is clear and unequivocal. To read the Bible any other way is to place oneself in rebellion against the clear teachings of God. This is a serious accusation and I believe it arises out of a shallow understanding of hermeneutics.

There are in fact two basic hermeneutics (the science of biblical interpretation), but the right and wrong of this issue is not as simple as some would make it. There is a way to read the Bible that is seemingly safe and secure, but often does not withstand detailed investigation. That way is sometimes called the “proof-text method.” It involves using a concordance to select passages from all over the Bible that seem to address a particular topic and attempting to understand their collective weight in light of current questions and concerns. At its best this method is a form of biblical theology, gathering everything the Bible says on a topic and seeking to learn from that data how to understand the mind of God on that topic. This method has been used within the Adventist Church from its very beginning and is quite efficient in quickly exposing biblical evidence related to a topic. It leads to relatively easy conclusions that work for a time, but tends to gloss over many things along the way. At its worst it is a powerful way to pick and choose one’s evidence and confirm preconceived opinions. At its worst it appears to honor the Bible while ignoring or distorting the message of the Bible. The selective method without exegetical (careful understanding of the original context) controls makes it too easy for one’s personal biases to determine what texts count as evidence and which ones don’t. The quality of the outcome can depend more on the character of the interpreter than the evidence itself.

The other hermeneutic is grounded less in concordances and more in broad reading of Scripture. One explores the Bible as a whole, taking it book by book and seeking to understand the questions the Bible writers were addressing and the issues they were facing. The interpreter recognizes that God meets people where they are (there is plenty of Scriptural evidence for that assertion– see the opening chapter of my book Everlasting Gospel, Everchanging World), so the teaching at any given point in the Bible may not be a final word on all related issues, but may be a specific answer to a specific issue in that time and place. Understanding the meaning of each text in its context is crucial to developing a biblical theology that can address today’s issues. In the Bible God sometimes allows or even seem to approve of actions that elsewhere are treated as wrong (how about the seeming approval of polygamy in 2 Sam 12:8?). So comparing Scripture with Scripture may still leave one short of explicit answers to every one of today’s questions, requiring one to explore where God’s revelation is trending. This is the method that has led Christians to abolish slavery, even though the New Testament seems not to forbid it (Eph 6:4-9).

At its best this method takes the whole Bible and its original contexts into account. It helps us discern what is clear in God’s revelation and what is not. It avoids the selectivity of the proof-text method and provides safeguards against our natural human biases. But this method also has its limitations. Few people have the desire or the time to master the Bible as a whole. Even for those who do, the process is lengthy and subject to human forgetfulness. In addition, understanding the context of each biblical story and message is best served by knowing the biblical languages and a great deal about ancient history and culture. This makes it easy to leave deep Bible study to the experts, who may become our authorities on what the Bible says rather than allowing every member to do their own diligence in the Word. In addition, projecting the “trajectory” of what God is doing in this world is often necessary, but it too introduces a human element into the process that can project trajectories God Himself might not recognize. So this method is not a fool-proof answer to all questions when the church is divided.

I have used both methods and see that there are strengths and weaknesses in each. A healthy church will not be limited in its approaches. But the outcome of my decades of study in hermeneutics indicates to me that God has not chosen to satisfy our curiosity about all matters in His Word. At creation God granted human beings intellect, reason and considerable freedom. Such freedom is best exercised when we don’t know the answer to everything. God calls us to sharpen our minds by wrestling with the difficult issues that He has chosen not to settle. So when the church, after years of study, remains divided on a question, humility and kindness are the appropriate response. Everyone agrees that the Bible is clear on how we should treat one another. What a shame it would be if we hammer others on things that in the Bible are not truly clear, while transgressing those teachings of the Bible that all agree are clear.

Politics in the New Testament (June 21, 2015 version)

In the previous blog posted a few days ago I raised the question whether or not there should be politics in the church. On the surface the obvious answer would seem to be “no.” Jesus’ teaching is clear. “If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other for a second strike. If someone curses you, offer instead a blessing. If someone abuses you, pray for him or her.” (Matthew 5 among others) This seems to leave little room for “competing interests” in the church. All subgroups in the church should adopt the self-sacrificing spirit of Jesus toward others.

Yet all who have experienced religious institutions recognize that political action is alive and well in them. Church people struggle to find a balance between competing interests among ethnic groups, people from different economic backgrounds, and people with differing theological perspectives. While it seems they should be exempt from politics, theological discussions are easily politicized when the outcome of a theological discussion would favor the competing interests of one side or the other in a church. Is there any way to get rid of politics in the church?

A careful look around the New Testament suggests that the Sermon on the Mount was not often followed to the hilt, even in the earliest church. Within a short time of Pentecost, competing interests arose in the Jerusalem Church (see Acts, chapter 6). It seems the Jerusalem Church set up a safety net for the widows in the church who may have been abandoned by their families when they accepted Christ. The Greek-speaking members of the church complained that the Greek-speaking widows of the church were not getting their fair share of the daily distribution of food. The complaint was brought to the apostles and they responded that it was not their responsibility to turn away from preaching to be arbitrators over food distribution. They invited the church instead to appoint seven men to take care of the matter.

But there are two elements in the story that are puzzling if these “deacons” were simply being appointed to relieve the apostles of administrative responsibilities. First of all, the seven “deacons” hardly confined themselves to menial tasks. The two we know the most about, Stephen and Philip, did a lot of preaching themselves, and in Philip’s case, he even did a lot of traveling. So the seven “deacons” behaved much as the apostles did. The other puzzling element in the story is that the seven deacons all had distinctively Greek names. While some of the apostles had adopted Greek names, their primary names were Hebrew: for example, Peter was a Greek name, but that is only because of translation, his real name was Simeon and Jesus’ gave him the Aramaic nickname Cephas, the linguistic equivalent of Peter (“Rocky”). So it seems likely that the seven “deacons” were added to leadership to ensure that the interests of the Greek speakers were fairly represented in the councils of church leadership. The problem in the church was competing interests, the solution was to make sure the neglected segment of the church was represented in the decision processes of the church. Sounds like a political solution to me.

A little later in the book of Acts (15:36-39), Paul and Barnabas are contemplating a second mission trip together. The previous trip had been hindered somewhat when John Mark, the nephew of Barnabas, suddenly abandoned the apostles at a difficult time. Barnabas wanted to give him a second chance to prove himself, but Paul would have none of it. There arose such a sharp disagreement (the underlying Greek word is the root of the English word paroxysm) between the two apostles that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him to Cyprus and Paul sought out a different companion for his mission to Asia Minor and Greece. Couldn’t one or the other of the two apostles have “turned the other cheek?” Couldn’t they have worked it out in the “spirit of Jesus?” Maybe they could have, but they didn’t. Instead they chose to go their separate ways, pursuing a political solution to strong differences.

A less-well-known story in the Book of Acts has to do with Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem in Acts 21:16 and following. Paul, Luke and a number of others, including at least one Gentile Christian named Trophimus, came to Jerusalem and stayed at the house of Mnason who had been an early disciple of Jesus (probably one of the 70 or 72 mentioned in Luke 10). The text tells us “the brothers received us warmly” (Acts 21:17). So at first glance, Paul and company seem quite welcome in Jerusalem. The next day, however, it is clear that thousands of believing Jews in Jerusalem did not yet know Paul was there (Acts 21:22) and these were believing the worst about him. Following the advice of the apostles to appease this other group of believers, Paul is arrested in the temple and his mission in the Book of Acts is brought to a close. Clearly, the church in Jerusalem remained divided between Greeks and Hebrews many years after Acts 6. Mnason, a Greek believer from Cyprus, was happy to welcome Paul. The rest of the church in town thought other thoughts about him. The end result was pretty ugly.

This brief survey of just one book of the New Testament makes it clear that politics in the church are the norm rather than the exception (see also Galatians 2:11-14). If the apostles themselves could not avoid it, church leadership today will not be able to eradicate politics from the church. Instead, it is wiser to be aware of the politics and find ways to manage political action in a way that causes the least possible damage to the gospel. In the shadow of San Antonio, the New Testament way to handle such politics would seem to me to call for a Yes vote on the ordination issue. That will ensure that those who prefer to ordain women will get a fair hearing in their various constituencies.

Politics in the Church

We can probably all use a break from the ordination debate, so I thought I’d repost a couple of blogs that I did about six years ago and were lost in the Go-Daddy meltdown. Many people are distressed by the politics in the Adventist Church. There are voices at both extremes of the Women’s Ordination debate who are saying something like “The Bible is perfectly clear and if you don’t see that you will burn in the fire!” But their “clarity” is in opposite directions. Others say the Bible doesn’t address the issue, so let culture and local consensus be the primary guide to God’s will in this matter. People are not only confused, but fear that the “politics” itself is a major problem. So the thoughts that follow should be timely, even though they were written mostly six years ago.

Should there be politics in the church? Isn’t the idea of politics in the church something of an oxymoron (putting two things together that don’t fit together)? At its most basic, I define politics as the process of balancing competing interests in a social system. For example, in the island nation of Fiji you have two main ethnic groups, native Fijians and Asian Indians. The two ethnic groups have very little in common. Native Fijians are darker-skinned (Melanesian) and have lived in the Fijian islands since before being “discovered” by westerners. The Indians are lighter-skinned and arrived during the colonial period. The Fijians tend to farm and live in the countryside, the Indians tend to live in the cities and towns and to be involved in commercial businesses. The Fijians tend to be Christians, while the Indians are usually Muslim or Hindu. When it comes to dividing up the island nation’s resources, the interests of Fijians and Indians almost always diverge. So the political way to keep the peace is to make sure that the respective political interests of Fijians and Indians are kept in a rough sort of balance. Colonial rulers sometimes kept the balance out of a lack of interest in the concerns of either side. But now that Fiji is an independent country, the prime minister will naturally come from one group or the other. There is always potential for power plays and strife as the competing interests are sorted out.

Sometimes different regions within a country will have competing interests. In China, for example, the people who live on the coast have very different interests from those who live in the interior. Coastal people tend to be involved in business and trade, people in the interior tend to be involved in farming. Coastal people interact more with the outside world, people in the interior of China tend to be more inward-looking. The coastal areas of China have a larger proportion of Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group. Various parts of the interior have large numbers of other ethnic groups, such as the Uighurs in Xinjiang and the Bao people in Yunnan. Keeping the country together by distributing resources fairly is a major focus of Chinese government. But competing interests have made it hard to keep the country together throughout its history.

Whether we like it or not, there are competing interests in any religious organization. Growing up in New York City, I remember the tensions that arose in my own church conference (diocese) between Hispanics and Anglos. The power in the conference had historically been held by Anglos, but as the Spanish-speakers rose in numbers, they felt that they were often left out in the distribution of power and resources and demanded greater representation in the “halls of power” or they would secede and form their own conference. Today there are strong and continuing efforts to make sure the composition of leadership in that church organization roughly reflects the ethnic makeup of the membership. Should it be that way, or should the leadership be chosen by God through more “spiritual” processes?

Theological differences can also create competing interests. Among Seventh-day Adventists, for example, there has always been some tension between a healing and service focus, on the one hand, and a doctrinal focus based on the study of biblical apocalyptic, on the other. Both of these foci are grounded in Scripture and in books like Ministry of Healing and The Great Controversy (neither of which contain the main emphases of the other), but tend to lead in somewhat different directions theologically. The healing side of Adventism tends toward an outward focus of engaging the world to make it a better place. The apocalyptic side of Adventism tends toward an inward focus of avoiding contamination from the world. Naturally, when Adventists from both sides get together, there can be tension, as it is always possible that each side will see a given issue from a somewhat different perspective. Theological discussions are easily politicized when the outcome of a theological discussion could favor the competing interests of one side or the other within the church.

Is the politicization of a theological discussion helpful or hurtful? Is there any way to avoid such politicization? Does God express his will through the outcome of political debate or does political discussion make it harder for people to hear the voice of God? Is it possible to balance competing interests in the church without conflict? Is “politics in the church” always a bad thing? Stay tuned. The next blog will explore what the Bible has to say on the subject of politics in the church.

Appendix to Ben Clausen’s Series on Design

Below Ben shares brief summaries of leading scientists who share the conclusion that the universe gives abundant evidence of design:

Numerous scientists are recognizing the evidence that life is possible only because the universe is fine-tuned. John Barrow and Frank Tipler (1986) may have the most complete list of fine-tuning examples in their book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Hugh Ross (1995), a physicist and Christian apologist, points out some of the coincidences in The Creator and the Cosmos. Paul Davies (1984), a theoretical physicist, has written a much shorter version entitled The Accidental Universe. Martin Rees, a professor of astronomy at Cambridge University, along with John Gribbin (1989) have written a book along the same line, Cosmic Coincidences: Dark Matter, Mankind, and Anthropic Cosmology. It has a leaning toward New Age philosophy. Many other books and articles emphasize similar ideas from both an agnostic and a religious viewpoint (e.g., Heeren 1995; Templeton 1994; Bertola and Curi 1993; Leslie 1989; Robson 1987)

Walter Bradley (1994), a mechanical engineer previously chairing that Texas A&M University department, has given a talk entitled “Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God” at most of the Ivy League and Big Ten schools. He says it is “one of the most exciting adventures of my life: challenging students and faculty alike to consider the overwhelming evidence from modern science for the existence of God.” In his talk, available online, he gives numerous examples of scientists with no religious motivation, who are emphasizing the evidence for fine-tuning:

Many scientists who were not long ago certain that the universe was created and peopled by accident are having second thoughts and concede the possibility that some intelligent creative force may have been responsible. — The Washington Post, describing an international conference held in Washington, D.C. in the late 1980s
The equations of physics have in them incredible simplicity, elegance, and beauty. That in itself is sufficient to prove to me that there must be a God who is responsible for these laws and responsible for the universe. — Paul Davies in Superforce (1984)
Such properties seem to run through the fabric of the natural world like a thread of happy coincidences. But there are so many odd coincidences essential to life that some explanation seems required to account for them. — Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous British astronomer and agnostic, in The Intelligent Universe
Slight variations in physical laws such as gravity or electromagnetism would make life impossible … the necessity to produce life lies at the center of the universe’s whole machinery and design. — John Wheeler, Princeton University professor of physics, Reader’s Digest (September 1986)

Francis Collins (2006), head of the National Institutes of Health, points out some of these examples of fine-tuning in his book, The Language of God, and concludes that they provide “an interesting argument in favor of a Creator.” Speaking of our fine-tuned universe, Nobel prize-winner Arno Penzias (Margenau and Varghese 1992, p.78) says that the universe has “the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say ‘supernatural’) plan.”

Paul Davies (1992), in The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World, says:

… There is no doubt that many scientists are opposed temperamentally to any form of metaphysical, let alone mystical arguments. They are scornful of the notion that there might exist a God, or even an impersonal creative principle or ground of being that would underpin reality and render its contingent aspects less starkly arbitrary. Personally I do not share their scorn. Although many metaphysical and theistic theories seem contrived or childish, they are not obviously more absurd than the belief that the universe exists, and exists in the form it does, reasonlessly. It seems at least worth trying to construct a metaphysical theory that reduces some of the arbitrariness of the world. But in the end a rational explanation for the world in the sense of a closed and complete system of logical truths is almost certainly impossible. — p.231

And in God and the New Physics, Davies says,

The delicate fine-tuning in the values of the constants, necessary so that the various different branches of physics can dovetail so felicitously, might be attributed to God. It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in the numbers, has been rather carefully thought out. – p.189

John Polkinghorne (1986), mathematical physics professor at Cambridge University and Fellow of the Royal Society, who also trained for the Anglican priesthood, says:

The rational order that science discerns is so beautiful and striking that it is natural to ask why it should be so. It could only find an explanation in a cause itself essentially rational. This would be provided by the Reason of the Creator … we know the world also to contain beauty, moral obligation and religious experience. These also find their ground in the Creator—in his joy, his will and his presence. — p.79

Heinz Pagels (1985), executive director of The New York Academy of Sciences and a theoretical physicist at the Rockefeller University, says that “the anthropic principle is convenient, but it’s not science”. In a 1985 article he concludes with:

There does exist a line of thinking that is in direct competition with the anthropic principle. Edward Harrison, in his textbook Cosmology, advises his readers early on: “We shall occasionally refer to the anthropic principle, and the reader may, if it is preferred, substitute the alternative theistic principle.” The theistic principle is quite straightforward: the reason the universe seems tailor-made for our existence is that it was tailor-made for our existence; some supreme being created it as a home for intelligent life. Of course, some scientists, believing science and religion mutually exclusive, find this idea unattractive. Faced with questions that do not neatly fit into the framework of science, they are loath to resort to religious explanation; yet their curiosity will not let them leave matters unaddressed. Hence, the anthropic principle. It is the closest that some atheists can get to God.

Conclusion to Ben Clausen’s series on Design

This is the last in a series of guest blogs on science, religion, and design by Dr. Ben Clausen of the Geoscience Research Institute, based near the campus of Loma Linda University. I am very grateful that he allowed me to present these at my blog site. The words that follow are his.

The argument from design for God shouldn’t be oversold and both sides of the argument need to be recognized, but it can be a useful argument. As long as one realizes that both evolutionists and creationists overstate their case to make a point, one has lower expectations about delivery on a promise. It is easy to make pronouncements that “man will never synthesize any organic molecules”, or “man will never set foot on the moon”, but they only make the Christian appear a fool when they happen.

The design argument is useful for the believer when evidence in the natural world is easily interpreted in harmony with a Designer; it is at least consistent with belief in the supernatural God of the Bible. The design argument can also be useful as an apologetic for the non-believer in at least suggesting that more than pure naturalism is needed.

Personally, I believe that the “heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork.” {Ps 19:1} The design that I see in nature is not proof for God – I have a choice –, but the evidence is good enough for me.

An Appendix will follow in a couple of days for those interested in further reading on this topic. It will expand on key works in the following bibliography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler. 1986. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford Univ. Press).
Bertola and U. Curi, eds. 1993. The Anthropic Principle, Proceedings of the Second Venice Conference on Cosmology and Philosophy (Cambridge Univ. Press).
Bhaktivedanta Institute. 1984. Origins (3764 Watseka Ave., Los Angeles, CA).
Fred Bortz. 2010. “Hawking and Mlodinow return with a unifying ‘Grand Design’,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 5; http://articles.philly.com/2010-09-05/entertainment/24977039_1_leonard-mlodinow-quantum-mechanics-lucasian-professor
Walter Bradley. 1994. “Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God”, The Real Issue 13(September/October):3-6,14, [http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9403/evidence.html].
J. Carr and M. J. Rees. 1979. “The anthropic principle and the structure of the physical world”, Nature 278(12 April):605-612.
Brandon Carter. 1974. “Large Number Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology”, in Confrontation of Cosmological Theories with Observational Data, International Astronomical Union Symposium No. 63, M. S. Longair, ed. (D. Reidel, Dordrecht-Holland), p.291-298.
Marcus Chown. 2001. The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms (Oxford Univ Press).
Francis S. Collins. 2006. The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press).
Paul Davies. 1983. God and the New Physics (Simon and Schuster)
C. W. Davies. 1984. The Accidental Universe (Cambridge Univ. Press).
Paul Davies. 1992. The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (Simon and Schuster).
Richard Dawkins. 1987. The Blind Watchmaker (W. W. Norton).
William Dembski, ed. 1998. Mere Creation: Science, Faith & Intelligent Design (InterVarsity Press).
Gabriel A. Dover. 1993. “On the edge”, Nature 365(21 October):704-706.
Linda T. Elkins-Tanton. 2013. What Makes a Habitable Planet?, Eos 94(16):149-150, 16 April.
Owen Gingerich. 1995. “Is There a Role for Natural Theology Today?” The Real Issue 14(March/April):1,9-14, [http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9501/natural.html].
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. 2010. 36 Arguments for the Existence of God (Pantheon).
George Greenstein and Allen Kropf. 1989. “Cognizable worlds: The anthropic principle and the fundamental constants of nature”, Am. J. Phys. 57(August):746-749.
John Gribbin. 1976. “Oscillating universe bounces back”, Nature 259:15-16.
John Gribbin and Martin Rees. 1989. Cosmic Coincidences: Dark Matter, Mankind, and Anthropic Cosmology (Bantam).
Stephen W. Hawking. 1988. A Brief History of Time (Bantam).
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. 2010. The Grand Design (Bantam; Random House)
Fred Heeren. 1995. Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God (Searchlight Pub., Wheeling, IL); see review by Dennis L. Feucht. 1996. Persp. Sci. Christ. Faith 48(March):50.
Lawrence J. Henderson. 1913. The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter (Macmillan).
Sir Fred Hoyle. 1959. Religion and the Scientists (London: SCM); quoted in: Barrow and Frank Tipler, op cit., p.22.
James Kasting. 2010. How to Find a Habitable Planet (Princeton Univ Press).
John Lennox. 2010. “As a scientist I’m certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God,” Daily Mail, 3 September; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html
John Leslie. 1989. Universes (Routledge, NY).
Mario Livio. 2003. The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World’s Most Astonishing Number (Broadway).
Casey Luskin. 2014. “Alister McGrath Mistakes Intelligent Design for a God-of-the-Gaps Argument”, October 15, Evolution News & Views (Discovery Institute); http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/alister_mcgrath_1090411.html
Henry Margenau and Roy Abraham Varghese, eds. 1992. Cosmos, Bios, Theos: Scientists Reflect on Science, God, and the Origins of the Universe, Life, and Homo sapiens (Open Court, La Salle, IL).
Alister McGrath. 2014. “Big Picture or Big Gaps? Why Natural Theology is better than Intelligent Design”, BioLogos, September 15; http://biologos.org/blog/big-picture-or-big-gaps-why-natural-theology-is-better-than-intelligent-des
Simon Mitton. 2011. Fred Hoyle: a life in science (Cambridge Univ Press).
P. Moreland, ed. 1994. The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer (Intervarsity Press).
Heinz R. Pagels. 1985. “A Cozy Cosmology”, The Sciences 25(March/April):34-38.
Blaise Pascal. 1966. Pensées Translated with an Introduction by A. J. Krailsheimer (Penguin).
John Polkinghorne. 1986. One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology (Princeton Univ. Press).
Martin Rees. 2000. Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe (Basic Books … Perseus Group)
John M. Robson, ed. 1987. Origin and Evolution of the Universe: Evidence for Design? (McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, Montreal).
Hugh Ross. 1995. The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God (NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO).
Joseph Silk. 2010. “One Theory to Rule Them All,” Science 330(6001):179-180.
Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise. 1989. Energy and empire: a biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge Univ Press)
Victor J. Stenger. 2011. The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe is not Designed for Us (Promethus Books).
John Marks Templeton, ed. 1994. Evidence of Purpose: Scientists Discover the Creator (Continuum, NY).
Michael Turner. 2010. “No miracle in the multiverse,” Nature 467:657-658.
Howard J. Van Till. 1995. “Special Creationism in Designer Clothing: A Response to the Creation Hypothesis”, Persp. Sci. Christ. Faith 47(June):123-131.
Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. 2000. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (New York: Copernicus … Springer-Verlag).
Steven Weinberg. 1992. Dreams of a Final Theory (Pantheon Books, NY).
Matt Young and Taner Edis. 2004. Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism (Rutgers Univ Press).

Other Cautions with the Design Argument

This is the eighth in a series of guest blogs on science, religion, and design by Dr. Ben Clausen of the Geoscience Research Institute, based near the campus of Loma Linda University. The words that follow are his.

(1) Design arguments are good, but not an air-tight case for a Designer. Although I believe that the universe, Earth, and life were designed by God, I am careful (often uncomfortable) about using design arguments. Looking at the natural world and universe as a believer, I can see the evidence for God’s direct design; but looking from a scientist’s perspective who uses methodological naturalism, I realize that other explanations are often possible and at times may be better (Young and Edis, 2004; Stenger 2011). The design argument is a good one, but it must be used carefully. Dependence on it can be like Israel depending on Egypt (Isa 36:6). Using design to encourage faith in the believer is well-intentioned and probably useful; using design as an anti-evolution polemic to convert the unbeliever has pitfalls.

(2) Design arguments often use marketing flair and rhetoric over academic rigor and full intellectual honesty. Arguments that need to be used carefully are: chance and incredulity (how could this complexity have occurred randomly?) and the cool factor (it’s so neat that God must have done it); they appeal to the non-scientist by not giving the full set of data and interpretations.

(3) The design argument may leave one with a God who designed the evil in the world, or at least allows it. Weinberg (1992, p.250) says, “Although I understand pretty well how brightly colored feathers evolved out of a competition for mates, it is almost irresistible to imagine that all this beauty was somehow laid on for our benefit. But the God of birds and trees would have to be also the God of birth defects and cancer.” Are the catastrophes in the universe designed – colliding galaxies, exploding supernova, and what at times appears to be chaos? Does God use stellar evolution to design the necessary elements for the universe? Did plate movement form the continents before life existed on earth? Are the catastrophic earthquakes and volcanoes directly associated with plate tectonics part of the design?

(4) Design arguments do not necessarily require the God of the Bible. They can also lead to various other metaphysical philosophies: New Age, Eastern mysticism, pantheism, theosophy, Hare Krishna, etc (e.g., Bhaktivedanta Institute). The design argument can also leave one with a deistic God – a God who sets things up correctly at the beginning to have the right fine-tuned constants, habitable planets, and life-developing properties and then just lets history take its course without further intervention. Projecting from methodological naturalism to philosophical naturalism in its extreme form is insufficient, but in some modified form it appeals to some, e.g., Howard van Till (1995).

(5) One cannot prove the existence of God and shouldn’t feel the need for science to prove the Bible. That may be like expecting proof of Jesus’ Messiah-ship by asking for signs and wonders (John 4:48). The design argument is not a silver bullet; humans have a choice. As observed by Blaise Pascal in his Pensées:

“We have an incapacity for proving anything which no amount of dogmatism can overcome. We have an idea of truth which no amount of skepticism can overcome.” — frag. 406

“God wishes to move the will rather than the mind. Perfect clarity would help the mind and harm the will.” — frag. 234

To be concluded. . .

Caution: Design Not Really a Science Argument

This is the seventh in a series of guest blogs on science, religion, and design by Dr. Ben Clausen of the Geoscience Research Institute, based near the campus of Loma Linda University. The words that follow are his.

While design is evident to our senses, the appeal to a Designer moves beyond methodological naturalism to something more, something beyond. To be science, the design paradigm should present a better alternative working scientific model, rather than just attacking the standard cosmological model; however, that may be difficult because the design paradigm appeals to actions from outside the realm of repeatable, ongoing processes.

Scientists trust the ongoing processes of nature just as all of us do in our everyday lives. Methodological naturalism works so much of the time that one has reason to trust the method: aerodynamic theory gets us around in airplanes, quantum mechanics theory gives us computers, and seismic theory can reduce the devastating effects of earthquakes and volcanoes. Since methodological naturalism works so well today, it makes sense to use it to explain the past with plate tectonics and stellar evolution, and there it also works amazingly well. Weinberg (1992, p.247) says, “… the only way that any sort of science can proceed is to assume that there is no divine intervention and to see how far one can get with this assumption.” Modern science developed in a Christian culture with many of the founding fathers being devout Christians, but the scientific principle had within itself the seed of atheism. The more that is understood of nature, the less need there seems to be for supernatural intervention to explain it.

Actually, no one would want God to be continually intervening in unpredictable ways. If one expects God to be continually intervening, it would not be useful to study how the world works. There would be no incentive to try to find patterns and laws that govern on-going processes.

Thus, design arguments are encouraging for the believer, but not so logically convincing for the unbeliever. That is not because most scientists are anti-God, at least not the ones I have worked with, but because it doesn’t provide a scientific explanation that is better than what science currently provides. Although one may believe that the universe was designed by a supernatural intelligence, that doesn’t make the design argument a scientific argument; it is more than that. In most cases, methodological naturalism’s use of natural law works well without a need for God to continually step in and adjust the universe, but that still leaves open the possibility that God designed and upholds those natural laws.

To be continued. . .

Caution: Design Can Be a God-of-the-Gaps

This is the sixth in a series of guest blogs on science, religion, and design by Dr. Ben Clausen of the Geoscience Research Institute, based near the campus of Loma Linda University. The words that follow are his.

These naturalistic explanations for design have their problems, but an appeal to a supernatural being also has its problems as pointed out in the book 36 Arguments for the Existence of God by Goldstein (2010). The design argument can easily degenerate into a god-of-the-gaps argument (McGrath 2014; Luskin 2014): Anything humans can’t explain, must have been by God’s specific intervention.

Before Sir Isaac Newton, God was thought to be directly responsible for making sure the sun rose every morning. Then Newton explained the motion of the sun, moon, and Earth using the laws of gravitation, while still attributing the laws to God’s design. Because of these natural laws, the observation of Halley’s comet in 1682 resulted in a predicted return in 1757; a yet to be observed planet (Neptune) was used to explain what would otherwise be slight gravitational irregularities in the orbit of Uranus. However, equations for a solar system with more than two bodies could not be solved exactly, and perturbations could accumulate and disrupt the order. So Newton felt that God (a god of the gaps) had to occasionally intervene to adjust the orbits because they were unstable and could become chaotic.

Eventually it was found that the perturbations averaged to zero and planetary motions were stable, so that equilibrium in the solar system could be explained without some supernatural intervention. Pierre Simon de Laplace further developed the theory of cosmology and carried naturalistic determinism to the point of saying that the future behavior of the universe is absolutely predictable, given the present position and motion of every particle today. He believed that nature was so well designed, that there was no need for a “god-of-the-gaps”. Tradition has it that Laplace gave his 1798 book, Mécanique Céleste to Napoleon, who said: “M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.” LaPlace responded, “Je n’ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse” … “I have no need of that hypothesis.”

Now theists seem comfortable accepting that God works through natural law to keep the solar system working without occasionally intervening in some “supernatural” way not amenable to scientific study. Over time the need for God seemed to decrease and this god-of-the-gaps design argument has fallen into disrepute. Thus, using the design argument as a god-of-the-gaps argument can be dangerous, because further evidence can refute the argument. Intelligent design arguments can do religion a disservice. One who makes a proof for God on the evidence of design today must be prepared for a possible disproof tomorrow.