Darwin's Predictions

There's a new website put up by Cornelius Hunter, author of Darwin's God and Science's Blindspot, two books that I highly recommend.

http://www.darwinspredictions.com/

More Secular Superstitions

This is another confirmation that the secularist is more likely to be superstitious than the Theist.

Let us not also forget that Richard Dawkins believes in space aliens.

Then, I guess that he makes a great spokesman for the atheist community.

Secular Superstitions

This post over at Uncommon Descent pretty much confirmed my view of the so-called 'Enlightenment': the 'Enlightenment' simply replaced one set of superstitions (Dark Age beliefs) for another set of equally superstitious beliefs. From the post:

:::QUOTE:::

The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won’t create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it: It might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition. And that’s not a conclusion to take on faith — it’s what the empirical data tell us.

“What Americans Really Believe,” a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.

:::END-QUOTE:::

During the Renaissance, men who rejected the authority of Rome went one of two ways. They either reformed their beliefs by conforming to Scripture and got rid of many of the superstitions of the Middle Ages, or they rejected propositional revelation altogether and were left to figure out the nature of reality (a universal) starting with only their own 'reason' and experiences (particulars). Seeing that one cannot validly reason from a particular to a universal and having cut themselves off from the only Source that could possibly give them answers to the nature of reality since He alone possesses complete knowledge of it, they were left with nothing but fear of the unknown.

Thus, instead of believing in elves and fairies, they now believe in UFOs and little green men.

Instead of believing in spontaneous generation of flies from trash, they simply add billions of years with the same belief and declare it to be 'scientific'.

Instead of believing in astrology, they now believe in multiple-universes.

Instead of believing that a frog can turn into a prince, they simply add a few million years and call it "our hominid ancestry."

Frogamander?

Nope.

A Comment on Scientific Realism at Green Baggins

This was a comment made by one supporting Peter Enns' re-interpretation of the Bible so that it fits current scientific theories. This comment in quotes is followed by my comment responding to it:

"I am an engineer. I cannot seal my worlds apart from one another like you suggest. I know no technical person (engineering, science, medicine, etc) who can. I beg you to reconsider your dismissal of the fruitfulness of critical/scientific method for ascertaining things about the physical world, including its history. Everything surrounding you right now — your computer, your clothing, the materials constituting your furniture and the building you occupy, the food in your stomach, and the antibiotics in your blood the last time you were sick — they are all proof of this fruitfulness. Of course it is not perfect, but that is not necessary (utterly relativizing science was not Kuhn’s point). Please reconsider, if only because pastorally you stand to lose so many technical people by insisting on that tack."

No one is compartmentalizing worlds. In fact, I would consider myself an Instrumentalist, one who recognizes that scientific theories can be useful for engineering things but realizes that with the discovery of a single piece of data an old theory can be placed in the dustbin, rethought, and a new (and sometimes drastically different) theory can emerge.

It was this case with geosynclinal theory. All geologists back in 1960 believed that mountains were formed through trough-like depressions that were filled with sediment, heated, became unstable, and rose to become mountain ranges. In fact, this theory was so widely held that it was said to be as sure as Darwin's theory of natural selection. It could account for the vast majority of the data at the time. What happened to it? Some guy proposed plate tectonics. Within a small period of time, the geosynclinal theory that was believed in by everyone was washed away and replaced by a very different one.

Another example would be the various geocentrist theories of our solar system. It allowed them to predict the position of planets and stars to a great degree of accuracy and was held world-wide by almost all cultures. Did its success mean that it was true? Of course not!

Yet another example would be Newton's Laws. Were they true? If anyone has heard of Heisenberg and Einstein, then obviously not. But did they allow us to engineer all sorts of useful things? Absolutely!

But that's the point. While scientific theories can be useful for engineering such as the things you mention above, antibiotics and computers, they should not be given the status of descriptors of the actual world.

More examples could be given that bear upon the very issue of dating methods. One example is Yellowstone National Park's fossil forrests (i.e. trees buried vertically on top of one another). Just about every geologist at one time thought that the fossil forrests must have been created gradually over long periods of time (i.e. one forest buried and another forrest planted above it and the cycle repeated over again). In fact, this "overwhelming consensus" is what caused Ron Numbers to leave the Christian faith!

Well, after Mt. St. Helens blew, one geologist that witnessed the event who was also an expert on Yellowstone, noticed that the trees that were washed away in mudflows were buried upright, in the same manner as those at Yellowstone. Now, the catastrophic mudflow explanation is the leading theory for how the buried forrests were deposited. Ron Numbers stopped believing in the inerrancy of the Bible all because he didn't wait long enough for the current theory to be overturned. That is the whole point! Christians shouldn't have to re-interpret their Bible because of scientific theories. Scientific Realism is false! Instrumentalism should instead be the philosophy of science for every Christian.

And by the way: I'M AN ENGINEER TOO!

[BTW: The story about Ron Numbers and the Yellowstone forrests can be found here.]

"The Knowledge of God" Series

Here are the links to "The Knowledge of God" series posts:

Scriptural Derivation

Introduction: The Necessity of Theology and Apologetics (1 Peter 3:8-17, “A Ready Defense”)
Part A (Intro.)
Part B (1 Peter 3:8-17)

The Doctrine of God
Part A (Unity, Eternality, and Aseity of God)
Part B (Incomprehensibility, Immutability, and Holiness)
Part C (Creator and Sustainer, Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnipotence)
Part D (The Lord of History, Incomparability, and the Personal Nature)

Creation and Man
Part A (Genesis 1:1-2:3)
Part B (The Enuma Elish, Genesis 2:4-25, and Genesis 3:1-24)
Part C (Genesis 4-10, and Genesis 11:1-9)
Part D (Christ: The Assault and Triumph Over the Continuity of Being)

The Irrationality of Sin (Romans 1:18-32, “The Exchange”)

The Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16, "The Wisdom of the Wise")
Part A (1 Corinthians 1:18-31)
Part B (1 Corinthians 2:1-16 and Excursus on Various Other Passages)

Pressing the Antithesis (Acts 17:22-34, “The Covenant Lawsuit”)

Philosophical Application

Overcoming the Anti-Metaphysical Bias

A Refutation of Scientific Realism

The Transcendental Argument for God, Part I (God’s Existence)
Part A (Materialism)
Part B (Dualistic Atheism, Vitalistic Atheism, Pan-psychism, Polytheism, Dualism, Monistic Pantheism, Dualistic Pantheism, and Panentheism)
Part C (Platonism, Aristotelianism, Post-Modernism, A Possible Objection, Conclusion, and Appendix: The Problem of Universals)

The Transcendental Argument for God, Part II (The Necessity of Special Revelation)
Part A (Rationalism, Empiricism, Kantianism, and Modern Idealism)
Part B (Logical Positivism, Probability Theory, Conclusion, and Appendix: Which Revelatory Theism?)

The Knowledge of God, TAG, Part B

Dualistic Atheism

Dualistic atheism still says that there are no deities in the universe, but it does allow for the existence of the soul in order to deal with some of the problems with materialism such as the “Illusion of Thoughts and Self” problem. However, because this view still has an impersonal origin of man, all of the problems with Materialism remain:

1. Argument from the Illusion of Thoughts and Self: Because the soul still has its origin in the impersonal cosmos, the most we can expect out of this soul is impersonality, and thus, there is a still a denial of the self-conscious, cognitive ego (see Argument 1. from “Materialism” above).

2. Argument from the Reliability of Cognitive Faculties: (see Argument 2. from “Materialism” above.)

3. Argument from ‘Evolving’ Truth: (see Argument 3. from “Materialism” above.)

4. Argument from ‘Person-Specific’ Truth: ‘Truth’ would still be relative to each individual soul since there would be no common, personal origin of these souls but an impersonal one instead (see Argument 4. from “Materialism” above).

Vitalistic Atheism

Vitalism, or rather neo-Vitalism, is the belief that the material cosmos has an unseen, inherent property, or “life force”, which causes matter to give rise to life. A small minority of scientists within the scientific community of the early twentieth century played around with this belief to deal with the “origin of life” problem. However, it still cannot avoid the problems associated with an impersonal universe as the origin of life and cognitive faculties:

1. Argument from the Illusion of Thoughts and Self: Because the ‘mind’ (which is still nothing more than matter) came from an impersonal cosmos, and thus, could only be as personal as the cosmos that gave rise to it, then it too would still be impersonal (see Argument 1. from “Materialism” above).

2. Argument from the Reliability of Cognitive Faculties: Because the universe which gave rise to the cognitive faculties of man was impersonal, and an impersonal force is not concerned with truth (since truth is an abstract idea of a mind), then it follows that the reliability of man’s cognitive faculties is unreliable or inscrutable at best (see Argument 2. from “Materialism” above).

3. Argument from ‘Evolving’ Truth: (See Argument 3. from “Materialism” above. Of course, this would apply only if there was some element of non-teleological evolution involved as well.)

4. Argument from ‘Person-Specific’ Truth: ‘Truth’ would still be relative to each individual brain since there would be no common, personal origin of these brains but an impersonal one instead (see Argument 4. from “Materialism” above).

A Vitalistic Atheism that is also dualistic (i.e., including the soul) would still have all of these problems since, as I showed above, adding a soul but keeping its origin (as well as that of the body and its cognitive faculties) in the impersonal cosmos does nothing to solve these problems. (See the arguments against both “Dualistic Atheism” as well as “Vitalistic Atheism” above.)

Pan-psychism

Pan-psychism is a form of naturalism that attributes both a mental as well as a material aspect to all things. Even atoms have a degree of consciousness.¹ Like Dualistic Atheism, this is an attempt to avoid the “Illusion of Thoughts and Self” argument that plagues materialism. However, because Pan-psychism’s cosmogony has an impersonal origin of the universe, man, and his soul, then it still suffers from the problems with man’s non-teleologically formed material body and mind interacting with the material universe.

1. Argument from the Reliability of Cognitive Faculties: (see Argument 2. from “Materialism” above.)

2. Argument from ‘Evolving’ Truth: (see Argument 3. from “Materialism” above.)

3. Argument from ‘Person-Specific’ Truth: ‘Truth’ would still be relative to each individual mind since there would be no common², personal origin of those minds (see Argument 4. from “Materialism” above).

Polytheism

Polytheism is the belief that there exist many separate finite deities that came into existence in the distant past from the chaotic void or substance.³ To quote one scholar:

“All non-biblical cosmogonies, according to Keil and Delitzsch, ‘are either hylozoistical, deducing the origin of life and living beings from some primeval matter; or pantheistical, regarding the whole world as emanating from a common divine substance; or mythological, tracing both gods and men to a chaos or world-egg. They do not even rise to the notion of a creation, much less to the knowledge of an Almighty God, as the Creator of all things.’ The consequences of this non-biblical perspective are far-reaching. In this concept, being is evolving and in process. Because being is in process, and being is seen as one and undivided, truth itself is tentative, evolving, and without finality. Since being has not yet assumed a final form, since the universe is in process and is continually changing. A new movement or “leap in being” can give man a new truth and render yesterday’s truth a lie.”⁴

Also inherent in this worldview is the dialectic between the two eternal, impersonal principles of chaos and order causing the events of the cosmos. Thus, history proceeds in an impersonal fashion without end due to these principles of chaos and order ‘balancing’ each other out. Because of this, polytheism suffers from all of the same problems as materialism, only instead of the ground of existence being the material cosmos, it is the impersonal (and irrational!) chaotic void.

1. Argument from the Illusion of Thoughts and Self: If everything, including the soul arose from the chaotic void, its thoughts and even the self-conscious ego would be an illusion. It would be nothing more than the result of the outworking of the two impersonal cosmic principles of order and chaos (see Argument 1. from “Materialism” above).

2. Argument from the Reliability of Cognitive Faculties: Although most polytheistic systems say that the gods or some personal agent created man, this only takes the problem one step backward since those very gods were themselves formed from an impersonal, non-teleological process (see Argument 2. from “Materialism” above).

3. Argument from ‘Evolving’ Truth: “Because being is in process, and being is seen as one and undivided, truth itself is tentative, evolving, and without finality.”⁵ (see Argument 3. from “Materialism” above.)

4. Argument from ‘Person-Specific’ Truth: Because each soul derives its identity and its relation to the ‘outer’ (i.e. material) world individually from the impersonal, chaotic cosmos, ‘truth’ would be relative to each individual soul (see Argument 4. from “Materialism” above).

Dualism

By dualism, I mean a form of polytheism in which there are two equal and opposing deities that fight over the universe. The form of Zoroastrianism under the Sassanid dynasty would be a kind of dualism. Because the two deities share space and interact in the universe, the universe must be more ultimate than they. Thus, either the impersonal universe gives birth to these deities, or there is some aspect of the universe which they cannot control (not to mention the two deities battling for control over it). Under the first scheme, there are all the problems associated with polytheism. As for the second, it would suffer from all the problems associated with metaphysical dualisms such as Platonism (see “Platonism” below).

Monistic Pantheism

Monistic Pantheism, or simply Monism, is the belief that everything is ultimately one and without division, and thus, all divisions are ultimately illusory. This view usually involves reincarnation. Buddhism and Hinduism are examples of this worldview (though they have serious differences).

1. Argument from the Illusion of Thoughts and Self: Because everything is an illusion, then you and your thoughts are also an illusion. Of course, this means that the belief that your thoughts are illusory is also an illusion, and this results in an infinite regress of illusory beliefs. Second, any supposed reason to believe in monistic pantheism is also non-existent since it too would be illusory. Finally, the belief in monistic pantheism would be an illusion as well, and thus, the belief completely defeats itself. Reductio ad absurdum.

2. Argument from Truth: Since there are no differences, there is no contrast between ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’:

“Panikkar maintains that Indians cannot really accept the principle that might be called the backbone of western philosophical thinking: the principle of contradiction. For Indians, Panikkar insists, things can indeed ‘be’ and ‘not be’ at the same time. …This seems to be close to the Taoist idea of yang and yin, where all things participate in the reality of their opposites: light and darkness, male and female, good and evil, flesh and spirit, and so forth.”⁶

“There are those who argue that these Eastern patterns of thought are inviolable and Christianity must adapt to them completely. Jung Young Lee has argued that in Asia we must get out of the habit of thinking in terms of either/or; we must be able to think of both/and. Change, he believes, may be the key to the universe, and ambiguity and differences merely the reflection of aspects of reality. In traditional Chinese thought, yin and yang are believed to be complimentary modes of being….He seeks to apply this to his view of God.”⁷

“Zen is one thing and logic another. When we fail to make this distinction and expect Zen to give us something logically consistent and intellectually illuminating, we altogether misinterpret the signification of Zen.”⁸

If there is no difference between ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’, then everything and its opposite would be both ‘true’ and ‘false’ in the same sense at the same time. To make it even more absurd, this belief destroys itself: if everything is both ‘true’ and ‘false’ in the same sense at the same time, then that very belief would be false at the same time as being true! Thus, there is no reason to believe in this view (as opposed to not believing in it) since every reason to believe in it also presents us with a reason not to believe in it in the same sense and at the same time. Thus, knowledge (including the belief that monistic pantheism is true) would be impossible. Reductio ad absurdum.

3. Argument Against Reincarnation: If everything is ultimately one and thus, an illusion, then man is also an illusion. That means that all of his experiences and actions of good and evil are illusions as well making the possibility (not to mention the very idea!) of reincarnation impossible. Furthermore, if all is one, then everything and its opposite are the same as well. This means that good and evil are simply two sides of one coin. Ravi Zacharias explains a story from the Bhagavad-Gita:

“There is a classic passage in the Bhagavad-Gita in which Krishna counsels young Arjuna, who is on the battlefield, facing the possibility of killing his own half-brothers. He struggles and cannot bring himself to do this. Krishna, who comes as his chariot-driver, talks to him about his duty. This was his duty, to fulfill his caste’s responsibility as a warrior. This is the way life moves on. But he told Arjuna not to fear to do his duty, for all good and evil are fused in the one ultimate reality, Brahman. In Brahman, says Krishna, the distinction breaks down. That which appears evil is only the lesser reality. In the end, all life, all good, all evil, flow from God and back to Him or it.”⁹

Thus, reincarnation is made impossible since there can be no ascending the scale of being for doing right or descending for doing wrong since all actions, whether good or evil, are both good and evil at the same time and in the same way. Reductio ad absurdum.

Dualistic Pantheism

This ontology posits the existence of both matter, spirit, and an impersonal power that controls the history of the material and spiritual universe. This would be your “Star Wars” type world (though I don’t know how many real religions like this are out there). In this worldview, like the chaos/order dialectic of paganism, the impersonal power would cause the events of history to fatalistically go back and forth between chaos and order, good and evil.¹⁰ Thus, this worldview would have all the same problems as materialism except that the hard determinism would come about through the impersonal force rather than through matter and physical laws.

1. Argument from the Illusion of Thoughts and Self: Because of this fatalism, man and his thoughts, being a part of the universe controlled by this impersonal force, would simply be a puppet to the swinging pendulum of history controlled by the impersonal power. Man would simply think and believe whatever the impersonal power needed him to believe in order to bring the cosmos back into “balance”. Man, as a personal ego, would technically not exist since he is simply the outworking of the impersonal force (see Argument 1. from “Materialism” above).

2. Argument from the Reliability of Cognitive Faculties: Like materialism, man and his cognitive faculties would come into existence as the result of an impersonal process moved along by this impersonal power (see Argument 2. from “Materialism” above).

3. Argument from ‘Evolving’ Truth: Because man would come about via some form of evolution, ‘truth’ would ‘evolve’ (see Argument 3. from “Materialism” above).

4. Argument from ‘Person-Specific’ Truth: Corollary to (1) is the logical conclusion that ‘truth’ would be relative to each individual (see Argument 4. from “Materialism” above).

Panentheism

This is the worldview in which the material universe is God’s ‘body’. This could take a number of forms. The first is one in which ‘God’ is not a personal being and would be the same as the “Dualistic Pantheism” mentioned above. But the most popular form of panentheism would be the view that ‘God’ is a personal but changing being that evolves along with the rest of the material cosmos (since it is his ‘body’). Thus, his cognitive faculties would be unreliable, and what he believes to be ‘truth’ would evolve with him. Likewise, it is usually held by those of this view that this ‘God’ had nothing to do with the emergence of man, and so, man came about as the result of a non-teleological process of evolution.¹¹ This view would have the same problems as “Dualistic Atheism’s” enumerated above.

Another (unpopular) form taken would be to give priority to this ‘God’s’ spiritual nature over his material one. This would allow this ‘God’ to be an unchanging being that could make man with properly functioning cognitive faculties. However, that view would simply be a form of theism and somewhat similar in terms of the affect on epistemology (but still vastly different in many other important ways) to Christian theism’s doctrine of God’s omnipresence.

In summary, if this God is impersonal or personal but evolves or learns of himself¹², or if he had nothing to do with the emergence of man, then man is doomed to epistemic nihilism for the above mentioned reasons. The opposite of that view would simply be a form of theism.

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1 There are typically two views of pan-psychism. The first says that each entity down to the very particle has its own consciousness. The second says that the entire material universe possesses a collective consciousness like an organism. I will be dealing with the first view under this heading. The second view can range from Dualistic Pantheism to Panentheism, and thus, it would be susceptible to any of the arguments I list under those headings below.

2 Since each thing down to the very atom has its own consciousness which is limited in scope, knowledge of the universe would be specific to the individual composed of those individual atoms. If, however, one argues that the material world has a collective consciousness, then this view would reduce to something akin to panentheism (see below).

3 I am not dealing, here, with another polytheistic view like that of Tolkien’s Middle Earth which says that the gods were created by an eternal, self-existing Deity. This would actually be a form of Theism. In fact, there is a slight similarity in Scripture to this since God did create other ‘mighty beings’, namely the angels.

4 Rousas John Rushdoony, The One and the Many (Thoburn Press: Fairfax, VA., 1978), p.143.

5 ibid.

6 Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992), p.5.

7 William A. Dyrness, Learning about Theology form the Third World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), pp.140-141.

8 D.T. Suzuki

9 Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message (Nashville: W Publishing, 2000), p.119.

10 This would not be the same as Divine Providence since, in the Christian doctrine, God causes all things to come to pass through both secondary as well as primary means. Thus, while both of these views are deterministic, the Christian Providential view would be a form of compatibilism which allows for free, human actions but the pantheistic view cannot avoid being a form of hard determinism.

11 One could hold to a view in which this ‘God’ created man, but it would still suffer from arguments 2 and 3 since, like polytheism, it would place the problem one step backward to the ‘God’ who is himself evolving.

12 That is, if this ‘God’ either does not have complete knowledge of himself or the material universe (which, in this case, would also be part of him), then it follows that there could be some remnant of unknown potentiality, whether in his own spiritual being or the material universe, which would affect his ability to know and create humans with properly functioning cognitive faculties attuned to man’s environment.

The Knowledge of God, TAG, Part A

The Knowledge of God

The Transcendental Argument for God, Part I

God’s Existence

“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” (Psalm 14:1)

“Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.”
~Augustine

Introduction

Having discussed the attributes of God and the nature of man, we are now finally ready to discuss God’s existence. From our study of Romans 1 and Acts 17, we have already seen that man has an *intimate* knowledge that God exists but suppresses that truth in unrighteousness. We have also seen that because of this suppression, man has invented worldviews that specifically deny God, and he interprets the world around him according to these beliefs. Thus, any evidence for God’s existence will simply be re-interpreted through the lens of the unbelieving worldview, and the premises of the old philosophical arguments for God’s existence will simply be denied on account of his worldview presuppositions. However, because these false beliefs deny the most obvious and necessary reality, the God who exists in Himself, these worldviews will reduce to absurdity, namely epistemic absurdity.

Thus, the claim of this argument is that if God does not exist, then knowledge, being defined as warranted¹ true belief, is impossible.² Or more simply, knowledge is possible if and only if God exists.³ Therefore, the unbeliever has no logical reason to believe in his worldview or attack Christianity, or as Van Til⁴ himself put it, “If you cannot believe in God, then you cannot logically⁵ believe in anything else.”⁶ This is a wonderful argument for God’s existence, not just because of its simplicity or that it leaves the unbeliever without a foundation, but also because it shows him that he is suppressing the obvious truth in unrighteousness, pointing him toward repentance.

What shall follow will be several sub-arguments showing how atheistic materialism reduces to total skepticism.⁷ After this, I will show how several of these arguments (and others) can be applied to all other non-Christian worldviews. The necessity of special revelation will await the next lesson. [I will note, before I begin, that I have had no formal philosophical training, and so my arguments may not use the proper philosophical language. I will also accept correction if any of my descriptions of these worldviews is incorrect.]

The Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence, Part I, God’s Existence

Materialism

Materialism, very simply, is the belief that all that exists is matter. It may also be called Physicalism (although this sometimes has a more precise technical meaning). Corollary to this is the belief that all living things, including man, emerged and evolved from non-living chemicals and non-teleologically⁸ at that. Therefore, several arguments can be put forth that show that Materialism destroys the possibility of knowledge:

1. Argument from the Illusion of Thoughts and Self: If all that exists is matter in motion without guidance or truth in mind, then you and all of your thought processes are materially caused in a non-teleological fashion. But if all of your thought processes are materially caused⁹, then so is the thought that your thoughts are materially caused!¹⁰ This means that your thoughts are illusory. However, that means that the thought that your thoughts are illusory is also illusory. This would also mean that the thought about your thought that your thoughts are illusory would itself also be illusory, and on and on it goes.

If man is nothing more than the impersonal product of an impersonal universe, then he and his thoughts are nothing more than a cog in the machine of the cosmos without warranted true belief. Corollary to this would also be the fact that the self, the cognitive-ego, is itself also illusory, and thus, knowledge is completely impossible since knowing requires a knower. Reductio ad absurdum.

Several materialists have recognized¹¹ this:

“If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true…and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”¹²

“The Astonishing Hypothesis is that ‘You’, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells, and their associated molecules.”¹³

“Objectivity nevertheless obliges us to recognize the teleonomic character of living organisms, to admit that in their structure and performance they decide on and pursue a purpose. Here, therefore, at least in appearance, lies a profound epistemological contradiction.”¹⁴

“Why is thought being a secretion of brain, more wonderful than gravity a property of matter? It is our arrogance, it is our admiration of ourselves.”¹⁵

2. Argument from the Reliability of Cognitive Faculties: If the materialism’s corollary account of man’s genesis, namely non-teleological evolution, is true, then man’s cognitive and sensory functions came about as the result of the stochastic process of random mutation and natural selection of phenotypic¹⁶ fitness.¹⁷ However, if this is the case, then those cognitive faculties are not geared toward truth but only toward survival-value (i.e. fitness) which does not *of necessity* have to be synonymous with truth-value.¹⁸ In fact, given the absolute non-teleological nature of impersonal evolution, it likely does not, or the degree to which it does is, at best, completely inscrutable. Thus, since the degree to which our cognitive faculties present our mind with truth is totally inscrutable, it follows that knowledge¹⁹ is impossible. Because this is the case, any method or argument a materialist uses to argue for his worldview would be totally self-defeating since he has to utilize his cognitive faculties in order to use these methods and arguments. Reductio ad absurdum.

To quote a few materialists who acknowledge this:

“If we are ever to understand the dynamics of cognitive activity, therefore, we may have to reconceive our basic unit of cognition as something other than the sentence or proposition, and reconceive its virtue as something other than truth. … The notion of truth, after all, is but the central element in a clutch of descriptive and normative theories (folk psychology, folk epistemology, folk semantics, classical logic), and we can expect conceptual progress here as elsewhere.”²⁰

“Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in…feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism’s chance of survival. Truth, whatever it is, takes the hindmost.”²¹

3. Argument from ‘Evolving’ Truth: If non-teleological evolution of man is the case, then it follows that man’s consciousness evolved. If his consciousness evolved, then that means that his ability to apprehend and discern truth also evolved. The logical conclusion of this is that truth ‘evolves’, or rather, a full apprehension of the truth lies in an unreachable abyss which man is slowly getting closer to (but will never fully reach) with every positive mutation selection. Further, though man is getting closer to a truer apprehension of the truth, we don’t know how close he actually is. Man could still be 4 billion generations (and dozens of new species developments) away from our minds truly being able to do ‘correct’ thinking.

If one argues that we already do correct thinking with our logical syllogisms, then this begs the question: how do you know that *that* is the correct way of apprehending truth (given the presupposition of naturalism, of course). Our chimp-like ancestors probably thought that their mode of thinking was the proper way too, and the same goes for our ancestors mid-way between the chimp-like and us. What if there is some much-more evolved way of thinking, a super-syllogistic logic that a species far more evolved than us will use? To quote Charles Darwin himself:

“Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance. But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”²²

Actually, given that non-teleological evolution is *non-teleological*, then it follows that our apprehension of truth does not become greater as we evolve since non-teleological evolution is geared toward survival value, which is not necessarily the same as truth value. This means that as evolution occurs the direction toward a correct apprehension of the truth could be forward, backward, static, or oscillating. In short, the direction is inscrutable. To quote the atheist, Bertrand Russell:

“Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.”²³

Therefore, because truth lies in an abyss, the apprehension of truth is impossible or at least unknowable as to its accuracy. Since that would be the case, knowledge is impossible. Reductio ad absurdum.

4. Argument from ‘Person-Specific’ Truth²⁴: As pointed out in (2) and (3), because men’s brains are simply matter and chemical reactions and came about through the non-teleological, stochastic process of Darwinian evolution, it follows that men’s minds are geared toward survival value and not necessarily truth value. Also, since all men’s brains are different because of differing DNA, it likewise follows that what one brain says is truth will differ from what another brain says is truth. To quote Richard Dawkins:

“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: ‘For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know.’ DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”²⁵

But on this basis, how can you differentiate between brilliance and idiocy? How can one know truth from falsehood? Logic from illogic? Since one’s valid syllogism and another’s invalid syllogism both came about as the result of a chemical reaction in their respective brains, then they are both just as valid or invalid. How can one chemical reaction be deemed more syllogistically valid than another?²⁶ There would be many equal truths, and ‘truth’ would be just as true as ‘falsehood’. Every man would be his own little universe. Because of this, warranted true belief would be impossible. Reductio ad absurdum.

To quote Democritus, the founder of Atomism, an ancient form of materialism:

“We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss…atoms and Void (alone) exist in reality…We know nothing accurately in reality, but (only) as it changes according to the bodily condition, and the constitution of those things that flow upon (the body) and impinge upon it…Man is a universe in little (Microcosm).”²⁷

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1 i.e. Held on adequate grounds rather than fallacious or haphazardly ones.

2 And, of course, the converse, if God exists, then knowledge is possible, is obviously part of the Christian claim, here.

3 It should be noted that a Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence using morality is also possible but does not have as much force as the epistemic approach.

4 The original Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence created by Cornelius Van Til and repeated by many of his followers, namely that God *must* exist, simply does not follow from the argument. Just because *epistemology* requires God’s existence does not mean that God exists. In other words, just because you have defeated all opposing worldviews’ epistemologies does not mean that you have defeated their ontologies. In all possible worlds, it could be the case that knowledge is truly impossible.

5 I take “logically”, here, to mean ‘with epistemic warrant’. That is, the unbeliever has no reason to believe in his non-theistic worldview since reason itself presupposes God’s existence.

6 The funny thing is that many unbelievers have acknowledged this (as we will see) but excepted themselves from their conclusion in order to create or defend their anti-Christian worldview. They do this by naively (and unknowingly) assuming that they are a third-person, objective viewer of the universe around them. In reality, they are very much a part of the cosmos that impinges upon them, and if their worldviews are true, then it follows that they would have no reason to believe their worldviews to be true since knowledge presupposes the existence of the God of Scripture.

7 I should note, here, that the charge that TAG is a skeptical-threat argument, similar to a ‘Cartesian Demon’ argument, is completely unfounded since it is an anti-skeptical-threat argument! In fact, it is the unbeliever’s worldview that is like Descartes’ ‘Cartesian Demon’ scenario, and thus, the objector has misidentified the skeptic. See my discussion under “Possible Objections”.

8 i.e. Without purpose or design.

9 And again, without teleology. This is to be understood every time I use ‘materially caused’ from now on.

10 The attempt to use the supposed randomness of electrons in quantum physics as a source of free-will is of no help to the naturalist. First, it isn’t certain that the electrons are truly random. That is a metaphysical assumption made by certain physicists due to lack of knowledge. In other words, it is a “randomness-of-the-gaps”. More importantly, random electrons will only yield total randomness, not a free-will. Instead of there existing a fixed hard determinism of action starting at the beginning of the universe (as in Newtonian mechanics), there would simply exist a *random* hard determinism of action occurring second by second. So, there is still a hard determinism of simple matter that lacks a self-conscious ego whether the naturalist chooses the quantum physics option or not.

11 Of course, they committed the self-excepting fallacy in order to come to this conclusion which, if true, would defeat the very reasoning processes they used to come to it.

12 J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds (1927; reprint, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001).

13 Sir Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis (New York: Touchstone, 1994), p.3.

14 Jaques Monod, Chance and Necessity (London: Collins, 1972), p.31.

15 Charles Darwin as cited in Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836-1844: Geology, Transmutation of Species, Metaphysical Enquiries, transcribed and ed. By Paul H. Barrett, Peter J. Gautrey, Sandra Herbert, et. al. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), p.291.

16 i.e. Body-plan. A genotype would be the genetic code that would yield the body-plan.

17 i.e. The ability for an organism to survive and reproduce.

18 While truth-value would most certainly provide survival-value, the converse is not necessarily true. It could be the case that your faculties would present your mind with falsehood in order for you to react in such a way as to remove yourself from danger.

19 Again, knowledge is being defined as warranted true belief.

20 Paul M. Churchland, “On the Ontological Status of Observables,” chap. 8 in A Neuro-computational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT/Bradford, 1990), pp.150-151.

21 Patricia S. Churchland, “Epistemology in the Age of Neuroscience,” Journal of Philosophy 84, (October 1987): 548.

22 Charles Darwin as cited in Francis Darwin, ed., The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (New York: Basic Books), 1959, I, 285.

23 Bertrand Russell, On the Scientific Method in Philosophy, ch. 6 (1917).

24 While the last argument related to men as a whole but over time, this argument relates to each individual man at any time.

25 Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (London: Phoenix, 1995), p.133 (emphasis added)

26 i.e. That would be a category error.

27 Democritus, Fragments 117, 9, and 34.

The Knowledge of God, A Refutation of Scientific Realism

The Knowledge of God

A Refutation of Scientific Realism

Introduction

In modern times, the great hope for many unbelievers to gain knowledge of the universe and the meaning of life has been and still is, for many, the epistemology of a philosophy of science called “Scientific Realism”. Scientific Realism basically states that the results of scientific theories should be regarded as accurate descriptions of the ‘true’ world. It is usually said that scientists are objective and neutral when looking at the facts while theologians are dogmatic and cannot accept the truth. There are a number of problems with this¹:

Refutation

Psychological Factors

1. Group-Think: The history of science has shown that scientists almost always believe in whatever the current scientific fad is. This is what Thomas Kuhn called a scientific ‘paradigm’. Anyone who does not conform to the current paradigm is usually dismissed and ignored.

2. Political Motives: Sometimes scientists with certain political persuasions will skew the data of a study to influence society and especially politicians toward implementing their political philosophies into law. For example, it is becoming more and more transparent that the science behind the anthropogenic global warming movement is fueled by a desire for global socialism and the destruction of Western-Capitalistic dominance. See this documentary here, here, here, here, and here,² and also this lecture here, here, here, and here.³

3. Metaphysical Motives: Often times, atheists will go into the sciences simply because the study of the material universe is the epistemology of their metaphysical belief. Thus, it is no wonder that the scientific community, especially biologists, is so inimical to creationism. They have metaphysical motives for rejecting it prior to seeing the facts. Take these quotes, for instance:

“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to the understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science – in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a concept and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door…To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.”⁴

“I am talking about…the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that…My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind.”⁵

For an example of this in the formation of Darwin’s Theory, see here.⁶ Also, a book that discusses this topic is Cornelius Hunter’s Darwin’s God.

4. Sub-Conscious: Much of the time, when scientists are examining the data, the formation of a theory will be at least partially influenced by their particular background. This could relate to b. or c., but in this instance, the guidance of the theory-formation is in the sub-conscious.

Educational Factors

5. Lack of Logical Training: Scientists often lack a good training in the basics of logic. Theoretical physicists and biologists are among the worst in engaging in circular reasoning, false dichotomies, and over-extended conclusions. This comes out especially when they are critiquing other theories or arguing that theirs must be right.

6. Straw-Men of Alternative Ideas: Scientists, especially when attempting a critique of Creationism, usually misrepresent opposing views, sometimes due to ignorance but sometimes with the desire to propagandize.

Procedural Factors

7. Theory Laden: Starting with an a priori assumption of the reigning theory, scientists will often interpret data through the lens of the current theory and then claim that the same data is proof of that theory! The thought of circular reasoning never comes to their mind.

8. Forcing Data to Fit the Theory: From time to time, scientists will force the data to fit the current scientific theory. A great example of this can be seen in the compromise on the date of the human/ape slit between paleontologists who used geologic dating methods and molecular biologists who used the “molecular clock” method. It never occurred to these scientists that if the methods they used to date this event in time differed so greatly, then either one or both of the methods that they used or even the entire assumption of evolutionary theory might be wrong. Another glaring example can be found here.⁷

9. Ignoring Certain Facts: When a certain scientific paradigm holds sway, the reigning theory will be assumed a priori, and all data that is contrary to it will be ignored as ‘extreme data points’ or something of the like.

10. Contrary Evidence as ‘Problems’ to Be Solved: Sometimes when ‘extreme data points’ are recognized as being contrary to the stated theory, scientists will often view the contrary data as ‘problems to be solved’ but still within that same theory/paradigm, or they will tweak the theory enough to accommodate the data. This is sometimes done by creating hypothetical entities that cannot be proven to exist. It will never occur to them (until a paradigm-shift in the entire community occurs) that the existing theory is, in fact, wrong. See here for example.⁸

11. Suppression of Alternative Ideas: Scientific theories that don’t conform to the current scientific paradigm or are contrary to many scientists’ worldview are usually either ignored or suppressed. It will usually be argued that a scientific theory should be ignored because it hasn’t been published in any reputable scientific journals, and at the same time, it will be argued that the scientific theory shouldn’t be published in a reputable scientific journal because the majority of the scientific community doesn’t believe in it! The vicious circularity is obvious.

The Barriers of Scientific Theorizing

12. The History of Scientific Theories and the Root of the Problem: The idea that science is an objective accumulation of truth is simply false. Instead, science goes through cycles just like philosophical speculation. A theory that becomes popular does so usually because it can answer recent problems and new data that the previous theory could not. That theory holds sway and is (naively) regarded as “fact” until new data is discovered which presents problems for the reigning theory. That new data is sometimes discarded as “outliers” or “anomalies”, it is forced to fit the theory, or the theory is tweaked just enough to accommodate the data. Eventually, when the amount of data builds up to such a degree that the current theory has too hard of a time explaining it or a new theory explains it better, a ‘paradigm-shift’ occurs in the scientific community in which the old theory (which was considered “fact”) is discarded for a new and sometimes extremely different theory. Once the majority of the scientific community believes in it, this new theory is also considered to be the new “fact”. Then, the cycle begins again. There are numerous examples of this:

• Geosynclinal Theory: As William Dembski explains:

“In the nineteenth century the geosynclinal theory was proposed to account for the origination of mountain ranges. The theory hypothesized that large trough-like depressions, known as geosynclines, filled with sediment, gradually became unstable, and then, when crushed and heated by the earth, elevated to form mountain ranges. To the question “How did mountain ranges originate?” geologists as late as 1960 confidently asserted that the geosynclinal theory provided the answer. In the 1960 edition of Clark and Stearn’s Geological Evolution of North America, the status of the geosynclinal theory was favorably compared with Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Whatever became of the geosynclinal theory? An alternative theory, that of plate tectonics, was developed. It explained mountain formation through continental drift and sea-floor spreading. Within a few years, it had decisively replaced the geosynclinal theory. The history of science is filled with such turnabouts in which confident claims to knowledge suddenly vanish from the scientific literature.”⁹

• Newtonian Mechanics: Again, Dembski exlains:

“Physicists thought that Newton’s laws provided a total account of the constitution and dynamics of the universe. Maxwell, Einstein, and Heisenberg each showed that the proper domain of Newtonian mechanics was far more constricted than scientists first believed. Newtonian mechanics works well for medium sized objects at medium speeds, but for very fast and very small objects it breaks down. In the latter case, we need to invoke, respectively, relativity and quantum mechanics.”¹⁰

• Aether: Aether was hypothesized to be an invisible substance, a medium through which light and planetary bodies traveled. It was believed in by scientists for much of the nineteenth century, but by the early twentieth century, it was thought not to exist after a few complicated experiments failed to detect it. Even after the theory had many problems pointed out to physicists, it continued to be held as dogma. As the author of this Wikipedia article put it:

“Contemporary scientists were aware of the problems, but aether theory was so entrenched in physical law by this point that it was simply assumed to exist.”¹¹

• The Ptolemaic Universe: This highly ridiculed belief was actually held by many cultures throughout history. It could predict the position of stars, planets, the moon, and the sun with a great degree of accuracy and was simply taken for granted as a “fact” of the universe. It was replaced by the heliocentric universe during the days of Copernicus and Galileo.

• Phlogistic Chemistry: Thomas Kuhn explains:

“The much-maligned phlogiston theory…gave order to a large number of physical and chemical phenomena. It explained why bodies burned – they were rich in phlogiston – and why metals had so many more properties in common than did their ores. The metals were all compounded from different elementary earths combined with phlogiston, and the latter, common to all metals, produced common properties. In addition, the phlogiston theory accounted for a number of reactions in which acids were formed by the combustion of substances like carbon and sulphur. Also, it explained the decrease of volume when combustion occurs in a confined volume of air – the phlogiston released by combustion “spoils” the elasticity of the air that absorbed it, just as fire “spoils” the elasticity of a steel spring.”¹²

• Others include: Caloric Thermodynamics, the Corpuscular Theory of Light, the increasing amount of appeal to catastrophic explanations in geology, the shift from Darwinism to Neo-Darwinism, etc.

A scientific theory once thought to be “fact” can at any moment with the discovery of new data or problems be relegated to the trash-bin of scientific history and regarded as “myth”. The only scientific theories which I can think of that can be assigned a probability¹³ of accuracy at all are those historical sciences which have the benefit of eye-witness testimony to the event(s) in question.

A Possible Objection

A possible objection to this and an argument put forth in favor of scientific realism has been to point out the success of scientific progress through history. However, the success, in large part, has to do with the practical application or “instrumentality” of those theories and not the “truthfulness” of the theories themselves. In other words, if one looks at the history of science, one will find that it is the engineering aspects of the sciences that have had such great success and an accumulation of technology, but the factuality of the theories of those sciences have changed, sometimes drastically. For example, the Ptolemaic universe helped man to predict the positions of the sun, the moon, the planets, and stars, but it was, as a matter of fact, false. So, all this objection proves is that science is good for engineering purposes, not epistemological ones. This particular philosophy of science is called Instrumentalism.

Conclusion

Due to its subjective and ever-changing nature, science can never serve as a reliable epistemic base.¹⁴ See here¹⁵ for a great example of why a Christian (or anyone for that matter) should never believe that scientific theories have the level of epistemic certainty.

The only way for someone to accurately pontificate on the nature of the cosmos is if a.) that person possesses complete knowledge of the universe ¹⁶ or b.) that person has a basic conception of reality imparted to him by one with complete knowledge of the universe. We will come back to the implications of this later.

UPDATE (12/14/08): Crev.info did a post refuting scientific realism that adds several more points to my list above.

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1 I will note again, before I begin, that I have had no formal philosophical training, and so my description of Scientific Realism and the arguments against it may not use the proper philosophical language. I will also gladly accept correction if I have misrepresented it.

2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr5O1HsTVgA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD6VBLlWmCI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZS2eIRkcR0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIbTJ6mhCqk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2XALmrq3ro

3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN06JSi-SW8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCXDISLXTaY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQQGFZHSno

4 Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p.31. I should note, here, that Lewontin’s conclusion that science is pointless if miracles can happen simply does not follow. In fact, it was under Christianity that science flourished. Because of the Christian worldview, man can assume the constancy of ‘natural’ laws because they are upheld by the immutable God of Scripture. In fact, Scripture reveals that God works mostly through ordinary providence (i.e. ‘natural’ laws in His creation) rather than special providence (i.e. miracles). Secondly, God commands man to take dominion over the natural world as His vice-regent (Genesis 1:26). All these things not only allowed for but caused science to thrive under Christianity.

5 Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp.130-131.

6 http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinism/the-reluctant-mr-darwin/

7 http://creationsafaris.com/crev200709.htm#20070919a

8 http://creationsafaris.com/crev200801.htm#20080119a

9 William A. Dembski, ed., Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2005), p.xxx.

10 ibid.

11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether

12 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Chicago University Press: 1996), pp.99-100.

13 The degree of probability depends on the situation, the amount of testimony, etc.

14 I am not casting doubt upon the *general* reliability of empirical data gathering such as the five senses. However, I have shown that those scientific theories which lack the benefit of eye-witness testimony cannot serve as an epistemic base or be regarded as “absolutely” or even “likely true”. Instead, I take the Instrumentalist position that scientific theories are simply useful (but not “true”) formulations to help us engineer things and make life better.

15 http://creationsafaris.com/crev200701.htm#20070112a

16 i.e. Omniscience

The Knowledge of God, Creation and Man, Part D

Christ: The Assault and Triumph Over the Continuity of Being

After the ‘re-creation’ of the earth through the Flood and the subsequent fall of man back into sin at Babel, it was apparent that an outward renewal of mankind through wrath would be ineffective to bring humanity back into full communion with God.¹ Man’s very nature was hostile toward God, and no amount of outward conformity could change that. Man’s inward nature would have to be renewed as well.²

As time moved on, the promised ‘seed’ of Genesis 3:15 which would renew creation to its former state passed from the woman to Seth to Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and finally to David. After David’s kingly line becomes faithless and fails utterly in being God’s firstborn and chosen leader of His people (Psalm 89:27), Israel is sent off into captivity. Shortly prior to, during, and immediately after the two exiles, God renews His unconditional promise to David that his line would endure forever. In these prophecies, the renewed Davidic kingdom is always linked with the undoing of sin, the defeat of those forces opposed to God, and the renewal and redemption of humanity and creation. In Christ, this was fulfilled and will be fulfilled.³

The Incarnation of the Son of God

The Continuity of Being viewed everything on a sliding scale of being which one could ascend upward to the divine or downward toward chaos. One could be fully god and no part man, fully man but not divine, 2/3 god and 1/3 man⁴, etc. but never at two points on the scale at the same time. With the Incarnation of the Son of God came the greatest antithesis of the world-system of unbelief. Christ was both fully God and fully man, in one person, with two natures and two wills, all “without confusion”.⁵ The Incarnation of Christ has massive implications:

The Dignity of Man

By God taking on the human nature, God was proclaiming the inherent dignity and glory of the human race:

“For He did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking. But one has testified somewhere, saying, ‘WHAT IS MAN, THAT YOU REMEMBER HIM? OR THE SON OF MAN, THAT YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT HIM? YOU HAVE MADE HIM FOR A LITTLE WHILE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS; YOU HAVE CROWNED HIM WITH GLORY AND HONOR, AND HAVE APPOINTED HIM OVER THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; YOU HAVE PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET.’ For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.” (Hebrews 2:5-8)⁶

This was in contrast to pagan religions which viewed man as the low end of the chain of being, having no inherent dignity. The modern naturalistic/evolutionary view of man is no different from these mythical worldviews. With Christ, God re-affirmed that man was made in the image of God and given glory and dominion over creation (Genesis 1:26-30, Psalm 8:4-8).

Salvation

In Genesis 28:12-17, we read of Jacob’s vision:

“He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”” (Genesis 28:12-17)

The ladder in this vision is not one with rungs on it but a stairway like on a ziggurat. The name of the place, “The Gate of Heaven”, confirms this since the name is similar to those of other ziggurats found throughout the Mesopotamian world. The stairway with angels ascending and descending on it was the path where man could reach God and plead for intercession. It was THE path of salvation and covenant blessing. Thus, we come to Christ’s words in John’s Gospel:

“And He said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’” (John 1:51)

Here, Christ, likening Himself to the ziggurat which leads to God, asserts Himself as the way of intercession and THE path by which to reach God. In contrast to the godless men building the ziggurat at Babel who sought to deify themselves, only through Christ can man be brought to God:

• “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’” (John 14:6)

• “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus…” (1 Timothy 2:5)

Man cannot ascend to glory his own way nor can he become his own autonomous god. Instead, the path of glorification involves being conformed to the image and likeness of Him who is both God and fully obedient to God as His covenant servant.⁷

True Revelation

With God revealing Himself in human flesh, God was revealing, in person (John 14:7-9), His standard of righteousness:

“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)

Most of mankind doesn’t want an absolute standard of righteousness over them. Instead everyone wants to do “what [is] right in [their] own eyes” (Judges 17:6, 21:25). Now that Christ has come, man shall be held to a greater account for his deeds (John 15:22-24, 2 Peter 2:21).

The Resurrection and Judgment

Because He was both God and a righteous man, the man, Christ Jesus, could not be held in the grave:

“But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” (Acts 2:24)

Because He was the perfect man, all men would be judged by the standard of His righteous conduct. His resurrection was that sign that the judgment to come is inescapable:

“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31, also 10:40-42)

The Hatred of the Real Christ

Christ was the most powerful denial of the Continuity of Being, and herein lies the reason for the natural man’s hatred of the Incarnation. It is, at the same time, the impenetrable wall blocking man’s attempt at godhood as well as the rejection of the belief that man is of no higher importance than the animals. In essence, it is the denial that man, in his life-style, beliefs, and thought-processes, is autonomous. This is why all the unbelievers of this generation want to recreate Christ in their own image, to snatch the rule over their lives away from Him and take it for themselves. In the end, however, their imagination will give way to reality:

“Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!” He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, “But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, You shall shatter them like earthenware.’ ” Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the LORD with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!” (Psalm 2)

The Church Age

With the coming of Christ came the beginning of the end (Matthew 3:2, 1 Peter 4:7). The Church age is the reversal of primeval history and, as a result, the reversal of sin and the curse. It is the antithesis:

• Christ’s perfect life was the reversal of Adam’s disobedience (Matthew 4:1-11, Romans 5:12-21, Hebrews 4:15).

• Christ’s death was the substitutionary punishment for all of our spiritual and physical sins including our sin in Adam⁸ (Romans 5:12-21, 6:3).

• The Resurrection of Christ was the reversal of physical death (1 Corinthians 15:21, 54).

• Pentecost was the reversal of the confusion of tongues at Babel (Acts 2:1-12).

• The ingathering of the Church from all tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations was and is the reversal of the scattering of the nations after Babel (Revelation 5:9).

• The gathering of all the nations under one head submissive to God’s will, Christ, is in contrast to the same action done by those against God’s will, Nimrod, the primeval antichrist, and the future antichrist.

• The last three chapters of Revelation are almost a mirror image of the first three chapters of Genesis.

In fact, the whole of history centers around Christ, the very revelation of God in the flesh, and it has been what men have done with this knowledge of God (or lack of it) that has shaped history.

Conclusion: The Knowledge of God

The knowledge of God shall be the basis of divine judgment on the last day:

• “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3)

• “For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-8)

• “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20)

What each man does with this knowledge is what separates believers from unbelievers, the Biblical worldview from that of unbelief, and it is to this topic which we will turn to next.

[All Scripture quotes are from the NASB, emphasis mine.]

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1 Of course, God already knew this, but He did those actions to teach us that the way in which He saved us through Christ was necessary and that we might glorify Him more as a result (Romans 9:22-23, esp. Galatians 3:24-26).

2 The command to “circumcise your hearts” (Deuteronomy 10:16) was realized by man to be impossible, and so, God would have to circumcise man’s heart Himself (Deuteronomy 30:6, Isaiah 54:13-14, Jeremiah 31:33-34, Ezekiel 36:25-27).

3 This is called “inaugurated eschatology”, meaning that something has begun now and will be finished at a later time. The kingdom of God is here now (Matthew 12:28), but it is still yet to come (Acts 1:6-8).

4 This was the description given of Gilgamesh in the Gilgamesh Epic tablets found in archaeology digs in Mesopotamia.

5 The quote comes from the Definition of Chalcedon, a ‘creed’ that confessed the orthodox doctrine of Christ. All the Christological heresies of the early church were a return to the “sliding scale” concept of the Continuity of Being. The Gnostic Jesus was without a human nature and taught that man can be saved by ascending into the Fullness of Being through esoteric knowledge. The Arian Christ wasn’t of the same being as the Father who was seen as too transcendent to be in the world, and thus, reconciliation was through a hierarchy of beings. The Nestorian Christ was comprised of two “persons” in the one man, and thus, the death of Christ was seen as the death of the human person, not the divine, which limited propitiatory power of the atonement. It was no wonder that Nestorius himself was a friend of the Pelagians who believed that man was to save himself solely through his good works. In the Apollinarian Christ, the divine nature overtook and destroyed the human. With this Christology, how could Christ atone for humanity’s sins? The Monophysite Christ was similar in that Christ only had one nature, the divine. The Monothelite Christ had only one will, the divine, and with this Christology, how could Christ relate to our infirmities as our perfect High Priest (Hebrews 4:15-5:10)?

6 In context, the author of Hebrews applies this Old Testament quotation to Christ (since He is the perfect Adam, the one who had dominion over creation) even though Psalm 8:4-8 was originally applied to mankind in general. Christ was and is as mankind should have been.

7 Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are a combination of Christianity and pagan religious/philosophical thought and, as a result, represent a return to the Continuity of Being. Their belief in added mediators of priests, saints, angels, and Mary between man and Jesus brings back the chain of being concept. Their veneration of images and icons re-divinize the material world and end up confounding the Creator and the created-order (though they still profess analogy). Their sacramentalism is a soteriological system in which man’s progress toward the Divine is partly dependent upon his own actions.

8 I am here referring to the concept of ‘Federal Headship’, a concept common in the ancient world in which those tied to a leader could be punished or rewarded based on the actions of that leader. For example, the punishment for the evil deeds of a man could also be dealt out on his family or tribe (Joshua 7:16-26, 2 Samuel 12:9-10, 14, Matthew 27:24-25). An entire nation could be punished for the wrong actions of its king (1 Chronicles 21:1-3, 7). Often times, we feel that this is unjust, but this feeling comes from our Western individualistic mindset that has been influenced by Greek culture and philosophy. Here, the guilt and punishment for Adam’s sin is imputed to us because, as the progenitor of the whole human race, he is our federal head (Romans 5:12, Psalm 51:5). To reverse this, Christ is made the federal head to all who believe resulting in the imputation of our sins to Christ and His righteousness to us (Romans 5:16-19).