Friday, April 30, 2010

Origins and presuppostion

A couple more quotes from the essay 'Worshipping the creature rather than the creator' by Greg Bahnsen.

Quotes and comments;

A. 'At each point, evolutionary speculation falsifies biblical teaching. To undermine the scriptural doctrine of creation is to undermine Christianity in toto, and this is because (as we saw above) evolution is not a restricted biological theory but a pervasive and religious worldview having a presuppositional status with its adherents. [1.]

- We can see evidence that macro Evolution isn't science (at the very least it's not only science) in the fact that people admit they would believe it even if there was no evidence. Rather than being a 'fact' discovered by investigation, it's a starting point for investigation. Rather than being a fact that is true, it's 'truth' is used as a standard for evaluating the data. As a basic presupposition, in the eyes of its adherents, it needs no proof... rather it's the basis for deciding what proof is. The 'truth' of evolution isn't found by examining the world, but is 'found' by making a logical deduction from the basic starting point of materialism. i.e. if one rejects the reality of a creator god one is left with the options of some other kind of theism, or of a-theism (i.e. materialism).

If one adopts materialism one of necessity has to believe in evolution (at least in the cosmic sense). This isn't science, it's metaphysics. (If you prefer you can call it religion.) All men must decide what their starting point will be; it will be biblical christianity, some form of theism, or materialism. All forms of knowledge (including science) will be affected by this initial decision.

B. 'It was Darwin's gift of hope, rather than the quality of his evidence, that captivated the minds of his readers. Though his Orgin had to be revised and reworked again and again, in order to deflect (he hoped) the sharp and overpowering criticisms lodged against his theory (driving him back into Lamarckianism at the end), nevertheless the hope remained. "give me matter, and I will show you how a caterpillar can be produced."

- The quotation is a reference to what Kant said in his book on cosmology.
- Darwin was one of the men who took up Kant's challenge to imagine how 'life' might emerge from matter. (Kant had already imagined how the planets might have 'emerged' from mere formless matter and so had passed the torch on to others to do the necessary work in biology.)

This great hope of Kant hasn't met with fruition. OOL experiments have failed to demonstrate any plausible evidence for a solely materialist origin for living organisms. (Perhaps Kant is still patiently waiting somewhere.) Everyone knows it's impossible for complex (coded) organisms to 'emerge' from inert matter, but the majority of our academic elite can't bring themselves to admit it. (It might be more accurate to say that they refuse to admit it.)

Summary;
Materialism is a self-defeating proposition. It's the story of physical law acting upon matter. The problem is that laws aren't personal, intelligent, willful or creative. This means the 'theory' has no source for the creativity we see in living organisms. The bottom line is that the materialist must claim that genetic code writes itself. The idea 'life' just chemically 'emerges' from inert matter has no credence. Kant's great hope (that someone would do for biology what he thought he'd done for cosmology) has been turning on the intellectual lathe for a couple centuries now and nothing has yet fallen out. No amount of polishing is going to get this dull rock to shine.

Notes;
1. Worshipping the creature rather than the creator - Greg Bahnsen

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The 'new atheists' of Darwin's day; part 3

This post continues on from a couple previous ones.

Quotes and comments;

Herbert Spencer;
1. 'Kaminsky correctly observes: "It is fairly clear that the theory of evolution had the same logical status for Spencer as the dialectic had for Hegel: no evidence was to be allowed to repudiate the doctrine." [1.]

2. Marx;
'It would be better, according to evolutionary standards, to leave the question of origins unanswered than to confess the existence of the Creator God. A classic example of just this sort of religious apriorism is Karl Marx's attitude. In the early manuscript, "Private Property and Communism," part of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, he denied the legitimacy of the question, "Who begot the first man, and nature as a whole? I can only answer you: Your question is a product of abstraction."

- In other words, if I can't answer the question it's a meaningless question. (i.e. if a question can't be answered in terms of matter in motion, then it's not a legitimate question.) This was the approach the evolutionists of Darwin's day took. They were only interested in giving materialistic answers to questions... and claimed these were the only answers that had any value or respectability. (Darwinism is a research program, not an attempt to discover truth. It's a particular method of looking at the world; and the method trumps the data. It's a way of looking at the world, not a concern with objective truth. This is why e. elite place such a stress upon method; on insisting that science equals materialistic method.)
- I take it that by 'abstraction' Marx is referring to that which is not material. (i.e. only physical is real)

3. Kant;
"It seems to me," he wrote, "that we can here say with intelligent certainty and without audacity... "give me matter and I will construct a world out of it!" i.e. give me matter and I will show you how a world shall arise out of it."[184] All it takes, he tried to prove in his study, is millions and millions of centuries - the creative hand of immeasurable time.

- Kant's cosmology (and I haven't read his book) seems to depend upon reifying time; on turning this 'abstraction' into a concrete and creative force. When we talk about time we're basically referring to perceived change... and particular rates of change. This means we're talking about entropy and decay. It's a mystery to me how this process can have a creative ability, especially one of the momentous kind required. (It's sort of like expecting the process of rust not to destruct a car but to construct a car.)

4. Kant;
'The Darwinian bandwagon was filled with men who wanted desperately to believe in a god of their own creation. That God must be, preferably, an impersonal god, a god who in no way interferes with the activities of the external universe, but at all costs, a god infinitely remote in time. Even the impotent god of Kant's Universal History, who was reduced merely to the incessant creation of matter - an autonomously evolving matter was too powerful for Kant in his post-critical years.' - Greg Bahnsen [186]

Notes;
1. Quotations taken from 'Worshipping the creature rather than the creator' - Greg Bahnsen
- reference #104

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Theologians for Darwin; or Darwinian theology

One of the main reasons darwin's theory of evolution had such a rapid ride to prominence is that it was blessed by the liberal theologians of the day; and has been ever since. Since these were the men who ran and populated the seminaries and taught the aspiring pastors it's little wonder the theory received almost no opposition from these circles or from the church in general. The opposition to Darwinism has largely been one that's come from the laity. I've assembled some typical quotes from some liberal theologians of the past. (Taken from the essay 'Worshipping the creature rather than the creator' by Greg Bahnsen)

Quotes and comments;

A. 'The church was warned against resisting Darwinism: "To call Himself reasonably well educated and informed, a Christian can hardly afford not to believe in evolution.... And to announce that you do not believe in evolution is as irrational as to announce that you do not believe in electricity." - Stanley Beck

- To compare a theory of biological origins with electricity is shockingly stupid. These two 'things' aren't even remotely in the same category. (You'd think even a theologian would know better; but perhaps he had his finger in a socket when he uttered this blast.)

B. 'Christian philosophers of religion like John Hick now proclaim that creationism "can no longer be regarded as a reasonable belief." [121]

- Yes; it's more reasonable to imagine living organisms magically emerged from the rocks (apparently on a mission to save the universe for materialists and atheists). It's more 'reasonable' to imagine the universe popped into existence out of nothing and with no cause (sort of like a hated relative showing up without invitation or warning). It's more reasonable to imagine pond slime climbed a ladder of complexity by suffering thousands of damaging mutations. It's more reasonable to imagine the personal came from the impersonal. It's more reasonable to imagine the intelligent came (magically, mystically) from the non-intelligent. Yes; I see it now... Darwinism is the epitome of reasonableness. (Did Hicks have a clue what he was talking about? If he did he was a rarity among our evolution trumpeting theologians.)

C. 'Emil Brunner grants science a privileged position of safety, saying, "We have to stress the fact that modern science (and this means the theory of Evolution) ought not to be opposed in the name of religion."[122]

- If Brunner was supposed to be a christian theologian why is he talking about religion? Religion in general isn't opposed to evolution at all. It's only biblical 'religion' that is opposed to evolution. (In fact evolution is a religion for many.) I'm sure Brunner was another expert in biology. He surely wouldn't talk about something he knew nothing about would he? I'm sure no responsible clerical personage would do that.

D. 'Indeed, Ronald Hepburn says, "It is of only secondary interest whether the world had a literal beginning, a first moment."[126] Supposedly the first text of God's inspired word is irrelevant to what follows!'

- You see, the bible isn't about the real world at all... it's more like talking about fairies and elves.
- It's only a short skip and a jump from claiming it doesn't matter if the world had a beginning to claiming it doesn't matter if it had a creator. I mean if it's all some kind of mystical history happening on some other level of reality why does it matter... and why does anything matter. But please; let's not embarrass our clergyoids by talking about horrible, messy and smelly things like creation. Please. Not in church. Church is a place we give talks on the spiritual meaning of the Heisenberg principle and the political implications of quantum theory... we don't talk about creation. Goodness, how could we get any of the important people to attend if we did that... why they might be insulted... they might think they'd stumbled through some doorway in space and tumbled into the bible belt.

E. "In so far as the theologian and evolutionist differ in their interpretation of the history of life... I agree with the evolutionist." - Lyman Abbott [131]

- of course what Abbott [1897] knew about biology could be found dangling at the end of his nose on a cold morning. He made the classic liberal mistake of assuming the 'knowledge' of his day equaled the truth. Biologists of his day didn't know squat.

F. 'But by far the greatest capitulation to evolutionary speculation is expressed in the contemporary move to draw God into the developmental process. Canon Charles Kingsley maintained that Darwin allowed theologians to get "rid of an interfering God - a master-magician, as I call it," in favor of an "immanent, ever-working God."

- What liberals hate is a God who won't agree to letting man be autonomous and ultimate; that's his crime... and for this crime he must be replaced with the dumbed down version approved of by Charles Darwin and the u.s. courts. Their hatred of and contempt for the triune God is obvious in all they write. They can barely write a paragraph without sneering and snorting over this or that abomination found in the bible.

G. 'Beckner correctly commented:
"The final step in this direction was to give God an even more intimate metaphysical connection with natural process. This step had been taken by previous philosophers - Spinoza and Hegel, for example; but it was repeated under the aegis of Darwinism by Bergson, Whitehead, and a number of Protestant thinkers. [141]

- The net result of Darwinian cosmology is process theology. (We might as well call it darwinian theology; perhaps in honor of that most holy day of liberalism 'Darwin Day'.) Process theology is hot man; it rocks... it's like U2 baby. The whole point of process theology is to make the word of God of no effect... and to replace it with the word of man. (Surely no one would disagree that Bono knows more about what's going on in our world than some dead guys from Palestine. Right.)

H. 'Spinoza's pantheism came to expression in [Samuel] Alexander's view that deity is "the next highest emergent quality which the universe is engaged in bringing to birth." "As actual, God does not possess the quality of deity but is the universe as tending to that quality."[143] Thus, Alexander formulated the idea of the universe as "God's body" and believed in an evolving deity.'

- Here's how it works; first the universe came from nothing; then life came from inert matter; then man came from living protoplasm; then finally, god evolved from man (or at least after man.) It's obvious isn't it?
- I guess this means that liberal theology is doing the work of a mid wife in helping this evolving god finally emerge into true existence. (Wow. That sounds like hard and dangerous work. Imagine being brave enough to help god himself be born. I think these guys deserve a raise.)

Notes;
1. Worshipping the creature rather than the creator - Greg Bahnsen [reference 120]
- all the quotes are from the essay; check the bibliography for the number references.

Monday, April 26, 2010

The new atheists of Darwin's day; part two

In my opinion evolutionary theory is far more of a philosophical position, than it is a scientific discovery. I want to look at some more evidence for this claim in this post.

Quotes and comments;

A. 'The British physicist, John Tyndall, was a naturalistic agnostic influenced by the philosophy of Fichte; he is well known from two famous speeches he delivered : "The Scientific Uses of Imagination" (1870) and the Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1874). He maintained that although there is no evidence for spontaneous generation, one who believes in the continuity of nature must "cross the boundary of the experimental evidence" and affirm that life and mind were latent in matter; in this way evolution can replace the creation doctrine. (This would seem to require that "simple" matter was actually fantastically complex, thus negating the "simple to the complex" theory of development.) [1.]

- Must cross the boundary? I thought all was matter in motion; that being the case where does this 'must' come from? (As a rule, Materialists always fail to account for their own experience and thought in terms of their universal theory of reality.) Tyndall has refuted himself but doesn't seem to notice it. e.g. if all is matter in motion, working in terms of physical laws, there is no freedom... not even in human thought. If he allows for freedom in thought he's refuted his presupposition of materialism. (Materialism has to be universal to work as a system, or as a worldview.)

To say (in rhetorical flourish) we must cross the boundary of evidence simply (and sadly) means we need to ignore the evidence. i.e. if we're going to propagate Evolution to the 'ignorant' masses we need to ignore the evidence against it... ignore the evidence that says it's impossible.

This is an example of what the bible is referring to, when Paul (in Romans) says that men suppress the evidence of revelation in unrighteousness. Tyndall knew better than to ignore evidence, than to go where evidence forbid, and he knew better than to counsel others to do the same... and yet he did. This isn't science; it's an immoral and sinful act of irresponsibility and betrayal. (Students deserve better than this from their teachers; not to mention the honesty that God deserves and demands.)

B. If you thought that quote was wild, try this one from Tyndall;
"However, the process must be slow which commends the hypothesis of natural evolution to the public mind. For what are the core and essence of this hypothesis? Strip it bare, and you stand face to face with the notion, that the human mind itself - emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena - were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation.... Surely these notions represent an absurdity too monstrous to be entertained by any sane mind.... These evolution notions are absurd, monstrous..." [2.]

Bahnsen comments; 'Despite this fact, Tyndall promoted evolutionary commitment with zeal.'
- You're not likely to see the above quote in a book by one of the new atheists.

Tyndall is admitting that the evolutionary notion is absurd, but he's willing to embrace it because of his hatred for Christianity and because of his desire for human autonomy in the moral and intellectual realm. In other words; Evolution is the only weapon or tool the non-Christians have, so they have to employ it no matter how absurd a notion it is. If our intellectuals were were honest they'd just reject God; say that although God obviously exists they hate him and reject all he stands for, and intend to live as if he didn't exist. [3.]

Summary;
Our intellectual elite don't come out and admit a self-conscious rebellion against God because they feel (and correctly I think) that the greater public wouldn't accept such a proposal. This rejection would mean the intellectual elite would suffer a great fall from power. To prevent this they push the idea there is no God and that the 'true' explanation for man's origin is something called evolution.

Notes;
1. Worshipping the creature rather than the Creator - Greg Bahnsen
- 'The fact is that Darwinism, despite its boast of scientific proof, is a theory erected upon a speculative supposition and supported by imaginary evidence; it does not establish historical factuality but merely gives us a "way of looking" at the world.' - Greg Bahnsen/ibid
2. ibid [reference 99]
3. There was a small movement called 'Death of God' theology, that tried to put forward just such a program, but it never took off. (I wonder why.)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The new atheists of Darwin's day

If we want to understand the phenomenal success of the 'Origins' by Charles Darwin we need to take a look at the intellectual background of the time. As we have our popular atheists now, so did they in Darwin's time. Their work paved the way for the rapid and devastating success of Evolutionary theory.

Quotes and comments;
The following quotes are all from an article by Greg Bahnsen, that I encourage everyone to read.

A. 'A further insightful preparation for the destructive work of evolutionary speculation is found in Feuerbach's making "Anthropology the mystery of Christian Theology." With the undermining of biblical anthropology, then, evolutionary thought would critically affect the whole of Christian theology. The Essence Of Christianitylater appeared in English translation, being published in London five years prior to the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species.' [1.]

- The 'new atheists' of Darwin's day were men like Feuerbach, Kant, Hegel, Marx and the so called higher critics. It was their ideas that provoked the fever in Darwin's brain; that fueled all his anti-biblical speculation.

B. 'Marx and Engels, following Feuerbach, transformed the dialectical process discussed by Hegel, regarding it as the movement of matter. Engels said that with one blow Feuerbach "placed materialism on the throne again."[42] For Engels the dialectical movement in nature was seen "as an historical process;"[43] thus, "the real unity of the world consists in its materiality, and this is proved not by a few juggling phrases but by a long and protracted development of philosophy and natural science."

- From Kant to Hegel to Feuerbach to Marx and Darwin... Secularizing the 'sacred' lead to deism and pantheism and then to materialism. Replacing transcendent metaphysics with an immanent one led to all the secular heresies of our day.

C. 'Karl Marx received a doctorate from Jena in the year that Feuerbach's above-mentioned work appeared in German publication; his thesis had been written on the early materialistic atomists, Epicurus and Democritus. As an atheistic Hegelian, Marx viewed history as a dialectical process of development, and he took criticism of religion as foundational to all true thinking. In 1848 he produced, with Engels, the influential Communist Manifesto, an expression of dialectical materialism. Marx was living in London and studying at the British Museum when Darwin's Origin of Species appeared. Forthrightly acknowledging affinities between Darwin's biological evolutionism and his own dialectical materialism, Marx proposed that Das Kapital(1867) be dedicated to Darwin, an "honor" Darwin prudently declined.

- Epicurus and Democritus were evolutionists (Darwin was well aware of them). No one discovered evolution; it's as old as atheism, as old as the Fall in Genesis, as old as Cain, as old as Lamech. To reject God creates a void; a void that gets replaced with an invention called evolution.

D. 'During the eighteenth century, materialism came to exercise a significant philosophical influence. The French encyclopedist, Denis Diderot, adopted the Heraclitean theory of flux, viewing the universe as a single, dynamic, physical system obeying immutable laws. He denied that any solution was reached in accounting for material phenomena by postulating a supernatural Creator. Instead, the transformation of the universe from chaos to ordered complexity was to be explained by the interaction of elementary particles. The historical development of life, consciousness, and thought from inert matter "overthrows all the schools of theology," said Diderot.

- All Darwin did was supply an imagined mechanism to make this common (in intellectual circles) notion work. Natural selection is hopeless inadequate to do the work it's required to do, but that didn't matter at the time. The idea was sold and the people bought it; the way the poor buy lottery tickets and the rich gamble. (It's a great irony, but a fallacious idea is often extremely hard to argue against; and natural selection was more of an analogy than a theory in any event.)

E. 'By 1754 Diderot had devised a theory of natural selection (in "Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature"); he hypothesized the sensitivity of matter to adaption, denied inexplicable gulfs between the natural orders (inorganic, organic, plant, animal, man), discussed the importance of inheritance of acquired characteristics in organic evolution, and (in "D'Alembert's Dream," composed in 1769) asserted that d'Alembert differed from a cow in terms of his peculiar evolution from parental germs. This monistic, energized, mechanized materialism was a clear foreshadowing of Darwin. "D'Alembert's Dream" was posthumously published one year before Darwin stepped on board H.M.S. Beagle...

- Why Darwin should get so much credit for more or less repeating what earlier french thinkers had written I don't know. (I suppose it's because France was in decline and the English were the world power.)

F. 'Four years prior to Darwin's publication of Origin of Species, the German materialist, Ludwig Buchner, wrote his famous Kraft and Stoff, wherein he maintained that all theories of supernatural creation must be rejected, that natural law is inviolable, and that motion is the eternal, inseparable property of matter. His hard determinism forced him to reduce mind to brain and to advocate the release of criminals from punishment. Buchner viewed Darwin's later publication as a striking confirmation of his naturalistic monism and atheism...'

- Why release the criminals? The idea that since man was just matter in motion, his behavior and even his thoughts were all a matter of rigid cause and effect (working in terms of chemical reactions) and thus man (as a machine as it were) could not be held responsible for what it did. (Man was, in this view, no more responsible than one of Darwin's pigeons.)

G. Buchner went on to say of Darwin's system;
[it] "is the most thoroughly naturalistic that can be imagined, and far more atheistic than that of his despised predecessor Lamarck, who admitted at least a general law of progress and development; whereas, according to Darwin, the whole development is due to the gradual summation of innumerable minute and accidental natural operations." [46]
- And yet we have christian liberals telling us Charles Darwin was a christian. (I guess people like Buchner were mistaken.)

H. 'Comte de Buffon, who in the mid-eighteenth century challenged the classification method of Linnaeus, held that there was no radicald is continuity between species or between animal and vegetable kingdoms; he denied divine teleology in nature and in his main work , Histoire Naturelle, promoted the concept of a struggle for existence.

- Darwin didn't 'invent' the idea of a struggle for existence, neither did he come up with the idea of natural selection. (I'm sure some many politicians would kill for the kind of pr Darwin got; and still gets.)

I. 'In 1830 Friedrich Schleiermacher was accusing the Mosaic account of creation of being a primitive, mythological notion and saying that the old record must not be treated as historical.' [50]

- When liberals call Darwin a christian, they mean a 'christian' of the sort Schleiermacher was. It was 'liberals' like S. who gave the boot to Genesis and the account of creation.

J. 'This capitulation of the authority of the revealed Scriptures to autonomous thought is made explicit by Schleiermacher:
''The further elaboration of the doctrine of Creation in Dogmatics comes down to us from times when material even for natural science was taken from the Scriptures and when the elements of all higher knowledge lay hidden in Theology. Hence the complete separation of these two involves our handing over this subject to natural science, which, carrying its researches backward into time, may lead us back to the forces and masses that formed the world, or even further still.'
Bahnsen adds;
'He concedes to naturalistic science the sole right to answer the question of origins, and if science tells us that the Bible and orthodox creeds are mistaken, then so be it.

Summary;
'The acceptance of the theory of evolution stemmed from the milieu created by philosophic opinion-speculation fostered by men like Spinoza, Kant, Fichte, Goethe, Krause, Hegel, Feuerbach, Engels, Diderot, LaMettrie, d'Holbach, Buchner, and Schleiermacher; Darwin's scientific surmises had been anticipated by men like Buffon, Lamarck, Saint-Hilaire, Chambers, Spencer, and his own grandfather. Men were living in the age of Darwinism prior to the publication of Darwin's book. And the philosophic developments which appeared subsequent to the acceptance of Darwin's theory of evolution had already been manifested by 1859. [1.]

Notes;
1. On Worshipping the Creature Rather Than the Creator - Dr. Greg Bahnsen
- An extremely important article. (It really should have been expanded into a book; but maybe someone will take up the project one day.)

Friday, April 23, 2010

Creation vs Brute fact

Since few people seem interested in what I've got to say on the subject of origins (creation and evolution) I thought I'd post a fairly long quote about creation by theologian Cornelius Van Til. (In my opinion he's the most valuable theologian to read for background on the importance of the doctrine of creation to intellectual thought.)

Quotes and comments;

A. "The total picture we obtain from both modern science and modern philosophy is a complete rejection of the biblical notion of creation. It matters not whether this rejection comes in the form of an outright negation in the form of agnosticism or in the form of substituting another meaning for the word creation. As orthodox Christians we have to face the fact that we are at this point, as along the whole line of thought, out of accord with modern thought.... The assumption of brute fact is itself the most basic denial of the creation doctrine. And the assumption that man can of himself interpret brute facts is itself the denial of God as creator. We need therefore to challenge the very idea of brute fact. We need to challenge man's ability to interpret any fact unless that fact be created by God and unless man himself is created by God." [1.]

- What does Van Til mean by brute fact? This refers to the idea (in naturalist thought) that the universe is an independent and self-sufficient entity; that it had no creator, and that it needs no one to uphold or sustain it. At the heart of Van Til's conception of creation is a denial of brute facts; and the claim every fact is what it is because of the its place within the Providence of God.

Van Til goes on to deny that men can properly know the 'facts' (data) without reference to God. Since the universe was created by god, you can't understand anything correctly (fully) if you deny this. He goes further and denies that men could know the 'facts' (or data) if the universe were what the naturalist says it is. Allowing that an independent (brute) universe could exist, it would be impossible to say anything valid or truthful about it. (Such a universe would be a random process, and man himself would be a random process; all would be a matter of meaningless chance. Without God there would be no source of the absolute.)

Most scientists (Christian or non-Christian) deny what Van Til said, and insist that there are indeed brute facts; and that man can know what the 'facts' are without reference to God. Most of them insist that we live in a brute universe and that this poses no problem (i.e. as to knowledge or epistemology). In this scenario man's intellectual abilities are just taken as an unexplained and accidental given.

So who's right? Everyone will have to decide for themselves. Evidence that Van Til was right can be seen in the inability of 'science' to determine what the facts are when it comes to human experience. (i.e. the inability to bring 'fact' and value together.) Relativism and skepticism are more evidence that without God (without presupposing God) man can know nothing; that without God all man has is opinion and illusion. The materialist claims that the 'facts' (data) speak for themselves, but clearly they don't.

Summary;
Van Til claims that only if a creator God exists, and only if He created mankind, is knowledge possible; that facts only exist because of God and his will and plan for the universe.

Notes;
1. "Christian-Theistic Evidences," an unpublished class syllabus (Westminster Seminary, 1961), p. 106.
- for people who don't know Van Til, he belonged to the Reformed tradition, and was a professor at Westminster Seminary.
- He wrote a lot of material that relates to the issue of creation. In his book 'Systematic Theology' he has four chapters on various kinds of revelation. A lot of his book 'Christian Apologetics' also deals with the subject of creation.
2. I'm not big on the term brute fact;
Brute; 'Not associated with intelligence or intellectual effort; unintelligent; irrational.' - Century Dictionary
- the etymology goes back to the idea of a dumb beast.
3. I guess we could say that while there might be dark matter (I doubt it) there isn't any brute matter. (That's the best joke you're gonna get out of me today I'm afraid.)
4. I've never seen any account for man's intellectual abilities in terms of materialism that came close to being credible.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Man as a revelation of God

Current academic thinking divides the universe up into the natural and the metaphysical or spiritual. These two realms are not connected in this model, as the realm of fact (matter) and the realm of value are utterly separate. The net effect of this view is that one can't learn anything about one realm by studying the other. I want to take a brief look at the biblical view of things, where reality is seen as an undivided whole; and where every aspect of the universe is revelational.

Quotes and comments;

A. "Man's own psychological activity is no less revelational than the laws of physics about him. All created reality is inherently revelational of the nature and will of God." - Cornelius Van Til [1.]

Most of our academics deny that man's psychological activity is in any way revelational; that it has a meaningful connection to reality. (In this we see a radical contrast with Van Til.) As an example; they deny that the need for truth, moral absolutes, meaning, etc. has any connection to reality. They deny that this intuitive belief and desire of man is evidence that these things exist, that they point to the true nature of the universe, or that they are evidence of a God created universe. There is no connection they claim between the need for certain presuppositions and their truth or validity .

The Materialist (atheist) needs to hold certain presuppositions in order to be rational, and he needs certain ethical and moral beliefs in order to live socially, but he denies that these requirements are revelational. He denies that these requirements are evidence for their existence or for the truth of Christianity. The fact we need something is no evidence it exists he tells us.

For Van Til, the need to presuppose God (i.e. if we want to be rational) is evidence for God. The need for moral truth is evidence for God. He claims that man must presuppose God to make sense of this life, his experience, and the universe; and that this is evidence for God. [2.]

Summary;
The claim that everything in the universe is revelational of God is founded on the 'idea' that the God who created the universe created man. The materialist believes that the universe (even if there were some kind of god) is independent and self-sufficient, and that there is no inherent connection between man and the universe. This being said, the Christian and the non-Christian will never see either man or the universe in the same way. For the materialist there will forever be a chasm between 'fact' and value; while for orthodox Christianity these two are intimately connected.

Notes;
1. Christian Apologetics - Cornelius Van Til/p.33
2. When he says we must presuppose God, this is short hand for saying we must presuppose the truth of the entire Christian system.
3. God not only created the universe, but he created the earth as a home for man. This being the case there's an intimate connection between man's psychology and the universe.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Faith as the foundation of science

The popular media persists on propagating the notion that what we see in the Origins debate is a matter of faith vs science. This is an utterly fallacious claim, but that doesn't seem to matter. As long as this ragged flag continues to fly it's incumbent upon Christians to address it.

Quotes and comments;

A. One of the most notable proponents of the science vs religion idea is our friend Richard Dawkins. He takes great delight in comparing the absurdities of religion with the profundities of science. This stance was paraded in his British TV series 'The Root of all Evil'.

In a summary of the show we read;
"Dawkins continues with a discussion of what he sees as a conflict between faith and science (see conflict thesis). He points out that science involves a process of constantly testing and revising theories in the light of new evidence, while faith makes a virtue out of believing unprovable and often improbable propositions." [1.]

- According to theologian Cornelius Van Til, all knowledge is grounded in faith; and this is as true for the Christian as the non-Christian, as true for the theist as the materialist. According to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, universal doubt is impossible; to know anything at all we must hold certain concepts to be beyond doubt (i.e. to be undeniably true). Wittgenstein claimed that people hold certain truths not on the basis of evidence or proof but simply because these are what one believes if one grows up in a certain tradition. (i.e. these 'truths' can't be proved, they're just accepted.) Van Til on the other hand believed there were good reasons to hold the basic Christian doctrines.

What kinds of things are we talking about? What is this faith upon which all knowledge depends? All people (no matter in what part of the pie they sit) must believe that the universe is real; that experience is real; that there's a real connection between reality and experience; they must believe in the basic truthfulness of their senses; they must believe in the validity of human language, that words have a real connection with reality; they must believe in the basic rationality of thought; they must believe in the possibility of truth, of the possibility of knowing truth; they must believe in other minds; they must believe true communication is possible; they must believe in existence of basic laws; they must believe in the uniformity of laws and of the universe; they must (if they want to do certain kinds of science) believe in the validity of numbers and of mathematics; they must believe there's a connection between numbers (math) and the universe. Whether this exhausts the list of things people must believe to have knowledge I'm not sure, but it's enough to make the point.

No one can prove these things (this necessary foundation for knowledge) they're just accepted on faith. This being the case it's absurd for materialists and atheists to claim that Christians (etc) take things on faith, and that the scientist doesn't require faith. At best this is naive claim that fails to comprehend the human situation and the basis of knowledge; at worst it's a case of deliberate deceit on the part of people who make the claim.

The difference between the faith of the Christian and the faith of the Materialist is that the faith of the Christian is founded upon good reason, while the faith of the materialism is founded on nothing. The materialist must believe that some kind of an explosion led to the 'emergence' of the universe; that somehow in a chance universe laws came into being, that matter came from nothing, and that all we see somehow emerged without a cause. He must believe that all the requirements for knowledge happen to exist by accident... by some kind of process of random chance. He must believe that some grand series of cosmic flukes are what make knowledge possible. In short; he has faith, but he has no reasons for his faith.

The Christian believes that it is god who makes all these things possible; that knowledge is rooted in the fact that the same God who created the universe, created man, and that this is what gives the connection between man's thinking and the universe. Van Til claimed that knowledge depends upon all of the basic Christian doctrines being true; that they are the only possible basis for human knowledge and human experience. It is thus God who is the ground of both moral and physical law; it is god who is provides the possibility of human freedom; it is god who is the source of human personality and intelligence; it is God who is the source of information and intelligence; it is God who is the ground of human language and logic.

Summary;
The idea there is a conflict between 'science' and 'faith' is a mistaken notion based on a deep ignorance of epistemology. Knowledge in general, and science in particular depend upon a belief in certain unproven presuppositions. Without this belief no knowledge is possible.

- Michael Johnson

Notes;
1. 'Dawkins continues with a discussion of what he sees as a conflict between faith and science (see conflict thesis). He points out that science involves a process of constantly testing and revising theories in the light of new evidence, while faith makes a virtue out of believing unprovable and often improbable propositions. - Wikipedia/2010 (about the TV show 'The Root of all Evil')

Monday, April 19, 2010

John Dewey and the new truth of Evolution

When apologists for Evolution claim that it's not merely a theory but true, as true as anything could possibly be, what do they mean? If you're not a student of philosophy you might be surprised.

Quotes and comments;

A. In summarizing the view of truth espoused by the Pragmatist John Dewey, a scholar has said; 'From this, the pragmatic theory of truth becomes evident. If a meaningful idea is useful in adjusting to a practical situation, if it helps to predict events and thus control what happens to us, it is deemed true.' [1.]

B. In the words of Dewey himself; "This is the meaning of truth; processes of change so directed that they achieve an intended consummation." [2.]
- In other words, truth is a concrete result produced by the deliberate actions of men, not an accurate picture of reality.

- For Dewey, knowledge begins with a problem. (Knowledge amounts to being a 'useful' solution to a problem.) The 'problem' for radical thinkers in the Enlightenment was this; 'how can we rid ourselves of the evil called Christianity?' The suggestion was offered that Christianity could be destroyed by destroying its foundations in the book of Genesis. This led to a practical problem of how to do this. It was suggested that this could be done by offering an alternative account of origins. This new account (based almost entirely on criticism and speculation) was pictured as progressive and scientific and thus better than the old.

- Darwinism is considered true by our Humanist elite, not because it's an accurate picture of reality - but because it has been an accurate prediction and a useful result. i.e. various non-Christian thinkers predicted it would radically harm a belief in Christianity (especially among the college educated) and this prediction has come true. It has also been useful in damaging the credibility of the Bible and the influence of c. thinkers. It has been truly useful we might say. (This pragmatic view of truth is based on the belief that absolute truth doesn't exist - and so 'truth' must be redefined as what is useful. i.e. by what is considered useful by the political and social elite.)

Summary;
When materialists called evolution or Darwinism true, they're using a different conception of truth. (As in liberal theology, the words are the same but the meaning is radically different.) They simply mean that it's a useful fiction; one that brings them results that they find valuable. I don't believe anyone really believes that living organisms somehow magically emerge from inert matter. The truth of evolution isn't a matter of scientific discovery, but of social engineering.

Michael Johnson [frfarer - at - gmail.com]

Notes;
1. Foundations of Christian scholarship - edited by Gary North/Pragmatism, Prejudice and Presuppositionalism - Greg Bahnsen/246
- This is a valuable essay, as is another essay in the collection he wrote called 'Socrates or Christ'.
2. ibid/p.247
3. Dewey was an ardent Darwinian, and a collection of his essays is entitled 'Darwin's influence on philosophy'
4. When I use the term evolution in this brief post, I'm referring to molecules to man (M2M) evolution.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Science and triumphalism; scientism as the new salvation army

I define scientism as the belief all phenomena (including human) can be explained in terms of materialism or matter in motion. (This is the project called reductionism.) Let's take a look at a quote by one of the most bold defenders of such a view.

Quotes and comments;

A. "Science, the system of belief founded securely on publicly shared reproducible knowledge emerged from religion. As science discarded its chrysalis to become its present butterfly it took over the heath. There is no reason to suppose that science cannot deal with every aspect of existence. Only the religious - among whom I include not only the prejudiced by the underinformed - hope there is a dark corner of the physical universe, or of the universe of experience, that science can never hope to illuminate. But science has never encontered a barrier, and the only grounds for supposing that reductionism will fail are pessimsim on the part of scientists and fear in the minds of the religous. " - Peter Atkins [1.]

- Aristotle said that success depend on asking the right questions; so let's see if we can ask the 'right' questions in regards to this statement by Atkins.

Q#1. Is there such a thing as science? Or does each person define the word in an arbitrary fashion?

2. Is science a system of beliefs? how can there be a system (any system) in a universe of chance? where would such a system come from? is it a human invention? is it a human projection imposed upon the data? how would one know? Since system depends on uniformity we might ask him how reductionism can account for the presumption of uniformity.

3. Science is founded on public and reproducible knowledge he says. Isn't it rather founded on the nature of man? isn't it rather founded upon the god given nature of man? Could there truly be science in a universe of matter in motion? could man possibly be a product of matter in motion? Man after all shares almost nothing (and nothing important or vital) with mere matter; so how did matter produce something so utterly alien from itself? Is such a thing possible? Don't things 'reproduce' after their kinds?

4. Does his use of the word 'emerged' have any meaning? If so what does it mean? Evolutionists are always making the claim that X emerged from Y; and that A emerged from non-A; but they don't give us believable accounts of how this happened, or even how it would be possible. (Over and over again we see the term emergence reified; and an empty abstraction is given actual existence and powers.)

5. Does the word 'religious' have any meaning as Watkins uses it? Isn't he merely defining it in a way that's favorable to his own views? Doesn't he in fact have 'religious' views of his own? Isn't the idea of 'emergence' a religious idea? It certainly seems mystical.

6. Is it true that the 'religious' hope there's a 'dark corner' science (materialism) will never illuminate? Is that the religious hope? Not that I know of. (Is there any reason to believe Atkins knows what he's talking about when he discusses religion or Christianity?) It's rather the claim of reformed Christianity that materialism can't account for anything, not even a dark corner. It's the claim of biblical theology that only Christianity can make sense of the universe.

7. Science has never encountered a barrier to its project of explaining all things in terms of matter in motion Atkins tells us. Is this true? or is Atkins being swept up on the wind of his own rhetoric here? It's the opinion of many that the materialist project has failed repeatedly... and spectacularly so. (e.g. the origin of matter, the origin of stars and galaxies, the origin of planets, the origins of life, the origins of complex life, the origins of man, the origins of morality, the origins of personality, the origin of man's stupendous abilities, the origin of abstract thought, the origin of language, the origin of science, and much more.) Watkins is merely blowing smoke. He's pretending to know what he can't possibly know. (I wonder if he can explain his bravado and bluffing in terms of a materialist reductionism.)

8. Atkins assures us that reductionism cannot fail; that the only reason people think it might not succeed are pessimism and fear. Is this the case? Is this even remotely the case. Everywhere you look you see the failure of reductionism. Can Atkins explain science on the basis of reductionism? Can he explain himself? Can he explain his hatred of Christianity on the basis of reductionism? (Reductionism is the mad dream that all phenomena will one day be explained in terms of physics; which would appear to boil down to the idea that all things can be explained (accounted for) in terms of numbers, in terms of mathematical equations.) Contra Atkins, there is no reason to believe such a project can succeed. (Is there anyone who wants it to? And why? Can they explain their desire on the basis of reductionism? Can they explain their philosophical desires on the basis of numbers?)

9. If Atkins is merely matter in motion, how does he know all this? Reductionism means that his 'god like' knowledge (of science, scientists, Christians, the future, etc.) is somehow all a matter of physics. Does anyone really believe that? Is it really possible to give an equation that will explain this (presumed) ability?

10. Atkins refers to the 'minds' of the religious. This seems a little strange as we keep hearing the claim of reductionists that men have no minds; only brains. Is this an admission on his part that this concept (no mind/only brain) doesn't make sense? Is the difficulty in conceptualizing human beings as mindless evidence for the fallaciousness of the concept? Does anyone really believe that mere matter is capable of doing quantum mechanics?

Summary;
- Well, we've asked some questions of professor Atkins (we could have asked a lot more) so we'll let him answer them at his convenience. Materialism (with its inherent project of reductionism) can't account for the human universe because it makes the simple mistake of conflating matter with reality. (One wonders how people can make a mistake this huge, but that goes to show the power of a good education I guess.) I called this a mistake, but it's more than that; people only get things this wrong when they have an anti-God agenda.

To deny the reality of mind, of personality, of intelligence, of information, and of God, isn't something that happens by accident. The worldview of materialism isn't a necessary deduction from the study of the universe, but a necessary implication of atheism.
We might ask Watkins how it is that some clumps of matter believe in God and some clumps of matter don't? If all was matter in motion it's hard to see how this could be the case.

Mike Johnson

Notes;
1. Quote taken from 'God's undertaker' - John Lennox/Preface/p.8
- The Atkins article is 'The limitless power of science' (Atkins has reified the term science here, not only making it into a person, but giving this person god-like powers.)

Thursday, April 15, 2010

MIA; A proof for the eternality of matter

In my opinion, what is called the 'new atheism' is a response to the inadequate approach taken by most Christian apologists. The defensive posture of only trying to defend Christian beliefs, and never doing a critique of non-Christian beliefs has given confidence to a lot of enemies of the Church. I think it's time Christians started asking atheists (materialists) some tough questions of their own.

Let's take the question of the origin of matter;

You'll have noticed I suppose, that few people try to prove the eternality of the physical universe. While there are many people (perhaps too many) trying to prove the existence of God, you'll have to look hard to find one person defending the eternality of matter. So why is this?

Materialism (the most popular religion of academia) depends upon the eternality of matter (since matter/energy can't be created or destroyed) but yet few seem concerned about defending the idea. Is this because no one thinks it's possible? Is it because no one is sceptical of the idea? Is it because most people take the idea for granted? Is it because most people are spiritually and intellectually asleep; having been hypnotized by the pablum and fodder dished out by the popular (ad financed) media?

To be a intellectually satisfied atheist one must be able to defend the eternality of matter, but yet few are trying to do this. People are all dialed in on the Big Bang model of cosmogony in our day, and they seem to think that this explains how materialism could be the correct view of the universe. (i.e. of its foundation) But the big bang doesn't explain the origin of matter. A basic tenet of physics is that matter can't be created or destroyed. So what's the explanation then? I've looked, and I don't see one. The problem with the big bang (in this regard) is that it starts with a singularity, it doesn't explain where this came from. The only explanation that I've seen (I'm not a student of physics) is that we just have to assume the eternality of matter. Yes; it's not a satisfying solution, but it's all we can do. People try to draw up models of eternally collapsing and exploding universes, or infinite universe, but these don't answer the problem either as far as I can see.

In my opinion most christian apologists are far too lenient with the basic ideas of materialism. They spend far too much time trying to prove God, and not nearly enough time critiquing the foundations of materialism; nor do they spend enough time critiquing the inadequacy of materialism to address the most important life concerns of human beings.

The christian view is that God created matter; that before matter was, God is.
- The fact we don't know how matter can be created, and in fact deny such a possibility, is evidence to me that God exists. Clearly matter and energy exist, therefore it seems likely that someone exists who must have superior knowledge to that possessed by mankind.

Mike Johnson [frfarer - at - gmail.com]

Monday, April 12, 2010

Creation and the problem of evil

The amount and nature of evil in the world is commonly presented as an argument against God's existence. I'd like to throw the ball back into the materialist court; as this problem is one that everyone has to account for and explain evil, not just the theist or the Christian. The materialist has no answer to the problem of evil because for him evil can't exist. The best he can say is that it's a delusion, based on some evolutionary programs that happened to get 'wired' into place some time in the distant past. If people saw things 'rationally' they'd see that evil doesn't exist. (This is what our friend Richard Dawkins has claimed.)

Quotes and comments;

David Ramsay Steele has a book defending atheism... but why does he bother? According to materialism, man is just matter in motion. Why then is a bit of matter defending atheism, and materialism? Why would a bit of matter care? How can a bit of matter care? The trouble with people like Gordon is that they don't think deeply enough about the issue facing them. Their own reactions belie their worldviews, and are evidence these views aren't true. He claims that the evil in the world disproves God, but how can mere matter be concerned about evil? (The materialist must believe that somehow this concern has been hiding within matter for billions of years, and recently 'emerged' onto the cosmic stage. But how could such a thing happen?)

It's this need to explain (justify, etc.) atheism that I want to look at, as I see it as evidence both for God, and for a created world. If man were just matter in motion (granted for the sake of argument this was possible) where would a need to defend atheism come from?

If all were merely matter in motion there would be no 'problem' of evil. Evil is a theistic concept in general, and one that only makes sense within a biblical worldview. The materialist talks about the problem of evil, but if there isn't any solution - which under materialism there isn't - why even talk about it? A problem suggests an answer; at least suggests the possibility of an answer. From the materialist perspective things just are; opinions about things aren't factual they're just feelings.

The atheist just takes himself for granted (as a starting point that doesn't need to be explained). But that's just the issue at hand. I see no way the materialist can give a believable account of his own existence, personality, capacities, ideas, etc. But he just shrugs this off as no problem. (It's really all he can do.) I see no way you make this cosmic jump from rocks to historians of Marxism. It simply can't be done on the basis of materialism. To merely say 'well, it may seem hard to comprehend... but we're here, and therefore materialism is true,' is no answer at all in my opinion. This simply begs the question. Nothing distinctly human can be explained in terms of materialism.

A. There have been many books written recently to capitalize the 'new atheism' craze. Here's the description of 'Atheism Explained' - by David Ramsay Steele;
'Atheism Explained explores the claims made both for and against the existence of God. On the pro side: that the wonders of the world can only be explained by an intelligent creator; that the universe had to start somewhere; telepathy, out-of-body experiences, and other paranormal phenomena demonstrate the existence of a spirit world; and that those who experience God directly provide evidence as real as any physical finding. After disputing these arguments through calm, careful criticism, author David Ramsay Steele presents the reasons why God cannot exist: monstrous, appalling evils; the impossibility of omniscience; and the senseless concept that God is a thinking mind without a brain. He also explores controversial topics such as Intelligent Design, the power of prayer, religion without God, and whether a belief in God makes people happier and healthier...' [1.]

Almost nothing Steele deals with makes any sense in terms of his own materialism. He has to 'borrow' (steal) ideas and concepts from the Christian worldview to make his claims. e.g. how can a piece of matter know if God exists? How can a materialist talk about evil since it's not physical and therefore not real? How does matter know what is possible or impossible? how can matter know whether mind exists? How can the materialist have a concept of truth or of falsehood? How can one explain truth in terms of materialism? How can one explain arguments in terms of materialism? What can happiness mean in terms of materialism? One could go on and on. But popular apologists for atheism just ignore all this. They clearly don't want to deal with the serious issues.

One of the biggest problems the materialist has is to explain why the Christian and the atheist have different views on things. He has to explain how physical law has been violated (assuming physical law produces uniform results) in this regard. He has to give a materialist account of explanation; of why matter would be interested in explanation, and what it could mean in terms of matter in motion. Over and over we see that the materialist can't deal with the complexities of human experience. The 'man' he talks about is some phantasm, more like a stone than a human being.

Summary;
When we examine the human situation we see that we're confronted by a great mystery. The atheist would rather deny this this mystery than face it. It clearly makes him uncomfortable, and he'd rather pretend that there's no problem, that there's nothing that needs explaining than try to account for his existential predicament. Surely it's obvious that our life situation here is many times more complex than the one he portrays.

Notes;
1. 'Atheism explained' - David Ramsay Steele [Product Description from Amazon]
'Atheism Explained explores the claims made both for and against the existence of God. On the pro side: that the wonders of the world can only be explained by an intelligent creator; that the universe had to start somewhere; telepathy, out-of-body experiences, and other paranormal phenomena demonstrate the existence of a spirit world; and that those who experience God directly provide evidence as real as any physical finding. After disputing these arguments through calm, careful criticism, author David Ramsay Steele presents the reasons why God cannot exist: monstrous, appalling evils; the impossibility of omniscience; and the senseless concept that God is a thinking mind without a brain. He also explores controversial topics such as Intelligent Design, the power of prayer, religion without God, and whether a belief in God makes people happier and healthier...'

I agree with Gordon that the argument for God based on better health etc. is a bad one.
- Arguments against theism and criticisms against Christians and Christianity don't make materialism (atheism) true.
- What we see here is Rationalism; where nothing can exist or be true if the rationalist can't make sense of it. i.e. reality must equal a man's ability to comprehend it; reality has to be limited by a man's ability to understand.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Spontaneous emergence? Or scientese?

The major parts of the molecules to man story of evolution are little more than claims without evidence. As an example of this, we're told repeatedly that life isn't a miracle of revelation, but merely an inevitable accident.

Quotes and comments;
"Life is an obligatory manifestation of matter... It's spontaneous emergence [was] inevitable under the conditions that existed on the pre-biotic earth. [It is] bound to occur similarly wherever and whenever similar conditions obtain..." - Christian de Duve

- Really? This amounts to a claim without evidence to back it up (as required in rational argument). I realize he offers various scenarios and speculations to back up his claim, but I see no evidence.

Duve's claim has to be one of the most foolish statements ever penned by man or ape. (But let's try to be serious.) Let's look at his statement. Let's begin by stripping out the abstractions and reifications. Let's start with life. Since we only know 'life' as genetic code, let's rephrase his statement in a concrete manner. It then reads, "Genetic code, is an obligatory manifestation of matter."

This amounts to saying matter is obliged (by government edict?) to produce genetic code? One wonders how mere matter (impersonal and stupid) is going to do this. (Is there a EU procedural manual it can use?) How can code be produced by some-thing that has no code, nor is capable of producing code?

Does inert matter realize it has this obligation? Has it received a letter from NASA? Attempted humor aside, Duve presumably means that living organisms must be explained by necessary cause. (The three kinds of cause are generally taken to be; necessary, chance and designed.) But where is the necessity? There is no necessity (to accomplish teological goals) only rigid, inflexible laws - only the death march of cause and effect, the mindless (uncreative) repetition of reaction.

Duve's statement can only mean that 'life' was somehow inside matter and somehow was expressed (manifested). Is this what we see? When you put 'matter' under the microscope do you see 'life' sitting there? (Not where I live.) Is there genetic code hidden away in granite? in hydrogen? Is there genetic code in matter? Obviously not. How then can 'life' (a reification) be a 'manifestation' of matter? This defies all we know about biology. It defies all we know about science. It defies all we know about logic. So then, how is this an obligatory (necessary) manifestation of matter?

One might wonder where the obligation of a scientist to be honest is; but maybe scientists aren't under the kinds of obligations matter is. If science is defined as working within the bounds of known physical law - then this is not a scientific statement or scenario.

Obligatory manifestation is strange language by the way; it sounds more like spiritism than science.
- Does 'spontaneous emergence' really mean anything? Isn't this 'scientese' for 'I don't have the foggiest idea'?

Notes;
1. Christian de Duve 'The beginnings of life on earth' [American Scientist/1995] from 'Dismantling the Big Bang' - Alex Williams, John Hartnett/p.158
2. Manifestation;
a. 'The act of manifesting or disclosing what is secret, unseen, or obscure; a making evident to the eye or to the understanding; the exhibition of something by clear evidence; display; revelation: as, the manifestation of God's power in creation. [Century Dictionary]
- Duve has objectified (reified?) manifestation... he's made a noun of a verb? (Is this just a translation problem? I doubt it.)
b. an appearance in bodily form (as of a disembodied spirit)
- so the spirit of matter manifested itself in a living organism :=)
c. 'The materialization or apparition of a spirit; -- a phenomenon claimed to be seen by spiritualists.
d. 'A public demonstration, usually of a political nature.
- Perhaps 'life' is a manifestation of matter in the way Darwinism is a manifestation of atheism or materialism. Perhaps it's a manifestation of matter in the way the ACLU is a manifestation of anti-Christianity.
e. The embodiment of an intangible, or variable thing.
Obligatory;
- I don't know if we have a translation problem here but obligatory is a strange word to use of mere matter. This is a poor use of language as only people can have obligations. I've checked many different dictionaries, and none uses obligation of inanimate objects. (I know scientists are allowed a lot of liberties, but are they allowed to ignore language conventions as well?)
Obligation;
'A social, legal, or moral requirement, such as a duty, contract, or promise that compels one to follow or avoid a particular course of action.
- Matter could only be under an obligation to produce life forms if some atheist put it under such obligation. (I jest; but how do you take a claim like this seriously?) It's true that atheists say very nice things about matter, but I don't think matter feels obligated by this kindness to perform supernatural tricks and stunts as a kind of payback.)
- Being a mere, lowly blogger, I'm under no obligation to take Duve's claim seriously... but I wish people would. When you look at it critically it just falls apart... it's nothing more than his desire the universe turn out in a way that suits him. (He apparently doesn't even feel obligated to use logic in his analysis; or to conform to known science.)

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Darwin's time machine; the evolutionary imagination

Charles Darwin loved to speculate about the past, and say things like ''it's easy to imagine..." this or that imaginary event occurred. (e.g. an eye developing from a light sensitive spot on the skin). He then went on to use these fantasies as proof of his theory. People seemed to forget that these ideas were just stories, and somewhere along the line acted as if they were true or real.

These stories of his had no explanatory power. It's a simple thing to imagine that something is possible.
What would happen if I said, ''I can easily imagine a time machine." Would this mean we could all act and talk as if time machines were real? as if we could travel in them? I don't think so; neither do I think we can make any progress toward a true understanding of origins if we travel in Darwin's winged carriage. (Darwin was the H.G. Wells of his day; but being more clever than Wells, he got people to believe his fiction was actually non-fiction.)

What Darwin was doing in his armchair speculations (strapped into his thought accelerator) was building a time machine; one he could use to travel back to the distant past in, to observe the 'emergence' of life. (Destination; small, warm pond. ETA unknown.) People don't seem aware of the hubris in such a notion, of its utter impossibility. We're so used to it by now that we aren't shocked by it; neither do we laugh at the absurdity of it. It's pure SF, but we've accepted it as truth.

We speak of the past as if it existed - but does it? Imagine a birthday party from the days of your grandparents. All the balloons are gone; all the smiles, the laughter, the noise... all of it is gone. While this is just a banal illustration, it seems clear that the past doesn't exist - but we speak of it as if it were some kind of concrete entity. If the past doesn't exist however, it means that any ideas we have of it are matters of faith. We can't be certain of what doesn't exist. This means that (contra the Darwinists) evolution cannot be a fact. Only if we had a time machine could we know this; but since the past doesn't exist there's no way to get to it. (It's as impossible as booking a flight for Shangri-la.) It was, and remains, metaphysical speculation in the form of a grand story.

All science deals with things that exist or happen in the present. While I think it's at least theoretically possible to be objective about the present, I don't think this is possible when dealing with the past. Why? Objects only exist in the present. Any 'object' that we talk about as existing in the past isn't real, but only a mental construct. (i.e. it's not a physical object, but an abstraction created by the human imagination.) As all scientists and researchers are finite, fallible and fallen, this imagined object (entity) cannot be exactly the same as the object that did exist once (in the country called the past). This means that our ideas about it can't constitute facts but only theory. [1.]

Summary;
Darwin claimed it was easy to imagine how the eye might have developed, or how the bear might have become a whale. [2.] This variety of hubris has been surpassed in our day by cosmologists who claim they can imagine a plenitude of universes, as numerous as bubbles on a sea of foam. When people start speculating about the past there's little to restrain them.
- I guess it's like what's happened in SF - the stories just keeping getting bigger, with events happening on a grander scale. We might call it metaphysical inflation.

Notes;
1. Being finite beings (and creatures of God) we should be satisfied with theory; rather than seeking absolute knowledge. (i.e. in regards to scientific investigation)
2. 'In the first edition of "The Origin of Species" in 1859, Charles Darwin speculated about how natural selection could cause a land mammal to turn into a whale. As a hypothetical example, Darwin used North American black bears, which were known to catch insects by swimming in the water with their mouths open: "I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale," he speculated.
- Well; even a great author comes up with the odd stinker.
3. I wonder to what extent the Laudanum Darwin consumed facilitated the ease with which he imagined the various scenarios he writes about in his books. They often seem to have a dream like quality to them.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Genomic defects and gnomic arguments

A recent book claims to have found a 'new' argument to disprove the idea of intelligent design. The author seems to be ill informed to say the least.

Quotes and comments;

A. 'Are your body’s imperfections reasons for you to reject intelligent design and embrace evolution? Professor John Avise (UC Irvine) thinks so. His new book Inside the Human Genome was given good press by PhysOrg: “Distinguished Professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, Avise also makes the case that overwhelming scientific evidence of genomic defects provides a compelling counterargument to intelligent design,” the article said. [1.]

- Really? Does anyone believe you could create a world thousands of years ago and then not have it suffer genetic damage? In no way does a perfect creation mean there's a perfect creation now. No creationist (I repeat, no one) thinks this is the case; but yet evolutionists keep coughing up this hair ball argument. Is our professor so ignorant he doesn't realize this? Has he read no creationist material whatsover? Is he lazy? just contemptuous? what's his excuse?

Not only that; the bible specifically (on numerous occasions) refers the Fall and to the corruption incumbent upon the fall. (eg. "The whole world groaneth in travail...'') So what's his excuse? If he's read the bible he knows better. If he's even remotely familiar with creationist literature he knows better. Is he merely trying to deceive ignorant people? You tell me. (If the publisher had given the book to a c. to read they could have easily told him all this.) This objection has been answered so many times over the last few decades that one wonders why it would have to be addressed again. The answers are cogent and to the point. This 'argument' is a bad one, and has no weight.)

B. 'The article said that evolutionary theory provides religious people a way out of theodicy – the need to explain natural evil. Avise said that while both theology and natural selection can explain the appearance of design, theology has trouble explaining design flaws.'

- Completely false as I've pointed out.
- I'd say it's evolutionary theory that has the problems with design flaws; as evolution is somehow supposed to be progressing, building marvellous organs out of thin air as it were. Biblical creation shows a descent from perfection to imperfection; while the evolution theory offered to us by Materialism gives us an ascent from imperfection (i.e. inert matter) to perfect (i.e. sophisticated genetic code) The professor (led astray by his monistic worldview) has got the thing back to front. He's trying to project his own problems onto the creation model.

C. “Serious biological imperfections, on the other hand, can only logically be expected of nonsentient evolutionary processes that are inherently sloppy and error-prone,” Avise claimed.

- I always find this comical. Here we have an evolutionist admitting that e. processes are 'inherently sloppy and error-prone' and yet they somehow (blindly, randomly, without foresight) managed to cobble together an Albert Einstein! That makes no sense to me. (Try writing a soft ware program with such a process :=)

I'm afraid I can't follow the 'logic' of life coming from non-life; of intelligence coming from non-intelligence; of the personal coming from the non-personal; of intelligent code coming from non-intelligent matter. If there's a logic to that story I don't see it.
- Apparently this man has never heard of genetic mutations, of genetic entropy.

D. “They’re [imperfections] more troublesome to rationalize as overt mistakes by a fallible God.”

- This is the kind of statement Charles Darwin liked to make. (i.e. attributing 'natural evil' to God.) One might ask him how he knows what a 'mistake' is (in terms of a blind, non-teleological process) and how he knows the mistakes he sees (or thinks he sees) were the acts of God? (Attributing 'mistakes' to God isn't scientific of course, it's theological.) We await his answer.

E. 'He extended Dobzhansky’s oft-quoted proverb that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” to suggest that nothing in religion, medicine or environmental issues makes sense except in evolution’s light either.

- Evolution's light eh? One wonders how much 'light' a non-intelligent, non-personal, blind, random, wasteful, violence ridden process can provide. Evolution's shadow is more like it; a shadow unto death.

Summary;
As the gnomes of legend protect mines and mineral lodes, so the materialist must protect the theory of evolution. One of the most successful methods has been to impugn the creation, and to blame its 'imperfections' on God. Avise is just the latest in a long line of those trying to guard the Darwinian treasure.

Notes;
1. Is Your Bod Flawed by God? Creation/Evolution Headlines 02/14/2010
2. I've mentioned the books 'Darwin's god' and 'Darwin's proof' by Cornelius Hunter before, but they're pertinent here as they address these issues. (Maybe the professor could pick up a copy and try reading it. Would that be too much to ask?)
3. I find it comical to have a materialist offer poor Christians a theodicy. A theodicy by someone who doesn't believe in god? A theodicy if there is no god? what's that all about. I don't think the church needs that kind of help. (I don't even think the liberals need that kind of help, as they've been offering up this kind of junk for a couple centuries or more now.)
- I don't know the guy, but I'm assuming he's a materialist.
4. Avise is the guy who needs to give us an explanation of evil. He should mind his own knitting and give us his own account of evil. He might tell us how, if all is mere matter in motion, such a thing as evil exists. Isn't he just borrowing a theistic concept here? What right does a materialist have to talk about evil; let alone complain about it? (I maintain that it's the materialist that has the biggest problem with evil. He can't even give us an explanation of how it could exist on materialist terms. He might tell us how to define it as well, and what to do about it... this phantasm that doesn't exist.)
- If he does think evil exists (and he seems to) then this ought to tell him that his worldview is false.

The need for a creation foundation for science

It's the claim of various Reformed theologians (as opposed to 'evangelical' or Roman Catholic) that Rationalism not only gets it wrong about God, it also fails to see the created world (nature) correctly. In this regard I want to look at a current example of getting things wrong.

Quotes and comments;

A. 'How can toads calculate? How can cells without a brain or central nervous system figure out a balanced diet? How can bugs navigate the wind for optimum flight time? These are some of the questions that can arise from observations of the living world. The more we learn about life, the more we find unexpected abilities in the most “primitive” of living things.

'The ameba seems like a lowly life form. How smart can it be? French scientists found out they are not only social organisms; they know how to obtain a balanced diet. Science Daily reported that “Even single-celled organisms feed themselves in a ‘smart’ manner. Experiments showed that amoebas thrive best with a ratio of two parts protein to one part sugar. When presented with a veritable grocery stand of nutrients, they went for the optimal ingredients on their own. “Social amoebae are thus capable of solving complex nutritional challenges, quite a surprising feat for a very simple organism lacking a centralizing system,” the article said. [1.]

- This is nonsense; the amoeba aren't 'solving' any challenges at all. The amoeba is acting in conformity to a designed (built in) program of instructions. It doesn't solve anything. The authors of the article speak as if it were solving this 'problem' because, as materialists, they assume that somehow this organism developed its own abilities. (e.g. like a person learning the skills of boat building or oil painting perhaps.) They work from a monistic worldview, and thus they get everything wrong. (i.e. apart from description.)

It's utterly mistaken to imagine these organisms somehow developed these abilities themselves. Clearly these abilities were programmed into them. (Does anyone imagine a computer programmed itself? or that a collection of metal fragments somehow programmed processing abilities into themselves? The idea is absurd; as absurd as the materialist explanation for life form functions.) Intelligence is simply not a property of inert matter.

These abilities are only surprising (as opposed to wondrous) if you're a Materialist who denies God is the creator of all things. The materialist admits that what he finds is hard to believe... but then suppresses the implication of that admission, and gives the credit to some mystical force called evolution.

Summary;
I agree with Calvin and Van Til that the natural man can't even get basic science right a lot of the time. [2a.]

The natural man (anyone working on the monistic principle) cannot see even nature correctly, let alone God. He may describe the world accurately (due to his god given abilities) but his view of the world is false because he doesn't portray it as created by god, and as a home for man. He sees it incorrectly because he doesn't speak of it as having been created for beauty and as a revelation of god's love, mercy and wisdom; nor does he portray it as having been created for the glory of God. On the negative side (as it were) he gets 'nature' wrong as he doesn't portray the world (or man) as fallen, and that this was caused by man's sinful rebellion against his creator. So although he gets it right as far as the physical details (of description) he gets the most important things wrong.

Notes;
1.Life Is Smarter Than We Know: Creation/Evolution Headlines 02/15/2010
2. Cornelius Van Til; some thoughts on creation, theology and science

a. 'With the entrance of sin, however, man cut his study of himself loose from god, and therewith also cut his study of nature loose from himself. For this reason all the study of nature that man has made since the fall of man has been, in a basic sense, absolutely false. As far as an ultimate point of view is concerned, the sinner has been mistaken in his interpretation of the physical universe no less than in his interpretation of god. The physical world cannot be truly known when it is cut loose from god. We may say that the phenomena cannot be truly known without the noumena.' - Cornelius Van Til/Systematic Theology/p.81
b. 'It must be maintained that nature must be related to man and when thus related is better shown for what it is as a revelation of god. Men can read nature aright only when it is studied as the home of man who is made in the image of god.' ibid/82
c. '...the natural man is as blind as a mole with respect to the natural things as well as with respect to spiritual things.' ibid
d. '...from an ultimate point of view the natural man knows nothing truly, but from a relative point of view he knows something about all things. ibid/83

Sunday, April 4, 2010

The image of God

As there's much confusion about what Christians mean when they refer to the image of God, I thought I'd post something pertinent to the subject, and appropriate to Easter week.

Quotes and comments;

You'll find below a sermon by B. B. Warfield called 'The revelation of man' but I want to post a few excerpts from the sermon first.

A. 'But, equally, because of His perfect identification with the children of men, partaking of their blood and flesh, and made in all things like unto men, He stands before us also as the perfect revelation of man. [1.]

Without the picture of Jesus placed before them, men would have no idea (not fully at least) of what a perfect man was, or of what teachers mean by the phrase image of god. The law of god certainly gives us a picture, but it's a shadowy picture, and one that only becomes clear in the Incarnation.

B. 'It may also behoove us to look upon Him who is not ashamed to call us brethren, that we may learn to know man—the man that God made in His own image, and whom He would rescue from his sin by the gift of His Son. [1.]

C. 'Therefore it is to Him that we are to look if we would see man as man, man in the possession and use of all those faculties, powers, dignities for which he was destined by his Creator. In this way the author of this epistle presents Jesus before us as the pattern, the ideal, the realization of man. Looking upon Him, we have man revealed to us. [1.]

THE REVELATION OF MAN - a sermon by B.B. Warfield

" But one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; Thou crownedst him with glory and honor; Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with
glory and honor." - Heb. ii. 6-9.

'These words form the beginning of a marvelous passage the subject of which is " Christ our Representative." That He might become our Representative, the inspired writer teaches, it was needful that He should identify Himself with us. Therefore it was that He became man. Language had been exhausted to exhibit the divine dignity of our Representative. In contrast with those men of God, the prophets, in whom God dwelt and through whom God spoke, He is called a Son through whom the worlds were made and by the word of whose power all things are upheld ; who is the effulgence of God's glory and the very impression of His substance.

In contrast with the most exalted of the creatures of God, the angels, He is given the more excellent name of the Son of God, His firstborn, whom all the angels of God shall worship ; nay, He is given the name of the almighty and righteous God Himself, of the eternal Lord, who in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth and framed the heavens, and who shall abide the same when heaven and earth wax old and pass away. Language is now exhausted to emphasize the perfection of the identification of this divine being with the children of men, when He who by nature was thus infinitely exalted above angels was made, like man, "a little lower than the angels . . . because of the suffering of death."

" It behooved Him," we are told, " in all things to be made like unto His brethren" ; and " since then the children are sharers in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same," in order " that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil ; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

The emphasis is upon the completeness of the identification of the Son of God with the sons of men, that by His sufferings many sons might be brought unto glory. And the implication is that as He was thus so completely identified with us for His work, so we are equally completely identified with Him in the fruits of that work. He shared with us our estate that we might share His merit with Him. There is a great deal more precious truth in this passage than we can profitably attempt to consider in a single discourse The whole gospel of the grace of God is in it. I have chosen its initial words for my text, and I purpose to ask you to fix your attention on its initial thought—the perfect identification of Christ with man.

And even this in only one of its aspects, viz.: the consequent revelation of man which is brought us by the man Christ Jesus. Because our Lord is the Son of God, the impressed image of God's substance—as the stamp of a seal is the impressed image of the seal—His advent into our world was the supreme revelation of God. But, equally, because of His perfect identification with the children of men, partaking of their blood and flesh, and made in all things like unto men, He stands before us also as the perfect revelation of man.

It behooves us to look with wondering eyes upon Him whom to see is to see the Father also, that we may learn to know God—the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who " so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." It may also behoove us to look upon Him who is not ashamed to call us brethren, that we may learn to know man—the man that God made in His own image, and whom He would rescue from his sin by the gift of His Son.

The text assuredly fully justifies us in looking upon Christ as the revelation of man. It begins, as you observe, by adducing the language of the eighth Psalm, in which God is adoringly praised for His goodness to man in endowing him, despite his comparative insignificance, with dominion over the creatures. The psalmist is contemplating the mighty expanse of the evening sky, studded with its orbs of light, among which the moon marches in splendor ; and he is filled with a sense of the greatness of the God the work of whose hands all this glory is. " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth, who hast set Thy glory upon the
heavens !" He is lost in wonder that such a God can bear in mind so weak a thing as man.

" When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained ; what is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" But his wonder and adoration reach their climax as he recounts how the Author of all this magnificent universe has not only considered man, but made him lord of it all. In an inextinguishable burst of amazed praise he declares:
" Thou hast made him but little lower than the angels, and crownedst him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands ; Thou hast put all things under his feet." He enumerates the minor elements of man's strange dominion, emphasizing its completeness and all-inclusiveness. "

All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." Nothing is omitted. So the praise returns upon itself and the Psalm closes with the repeated and now justified exclamation, " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth !" It is a hymn, you observe, of man's dignity and honor and dominion.

God is praised that He has dealt in so wondrous a fashion with mortal man, born from men, that He has elevated him to a position but little lower than that of the angels, crowned him with glory and honor, and
given him dominion over all the works of His hands. Now, observe how the author of this epistle deals with the Psalm. He adduces it as authoritative Scripture declaring indisputable fact. " One hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; Thou crownedst him with glory and honor; Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet."

He expounds its meaning accurately. "For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is not subject to him." And then he argues thus : " But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honor." That is, of course, in Jesus only as yet do we see in actual possession and exercise, in its completeness and perfection, that majesty and dominion which the inspired psalmist attributes to man.

God has expressly subjected all things to man ; man has obviously not entered into his dominion ; but the
man Jesus has. Therefore it is to Him that we are to look if we would see man as man, man in the possession and use of all those faculties, powers, dignities for which he was destined by his Creator. In this way the author of this epistle presents Jesus before us as the pattern, the ideal, the realization of man. Looking upon Him, we have man revealed to us.

I beg you to keep fully in mind that our Lord's adaptation to reveal to us what man is, is based by the author of this epistle solely on the perfection of His identification with us in His incarnation. To the author of this epistle, our Lord in His own proper person is beyond all comparison with man. As God's own Son, the effulgence of His glory and the impressed image of His substance, He is beyond comparison even with prophets and infinitely above angels. He became identified with us by an act of humiliation and for an assigned cause, viz. : for the sake " of the suffering of death," that is, in order that He might be able to undertake and properly to fulfill His high-priestly work—as we are immediately instructed in detail.

This act of humiliation is expressed here, for the sake of giving point to the argument, in language derived from the Psalm : " He hath been made a little lower than the angels." Observe, then, the pregnant difference
which emerges in the use of this phrase of man and of our Lord. That man was made but little lower than the angels marks the height of his exaltation : " Thou didst make him a little lower than the angels, Thou didst crown him with glory and honor."

That our Lord was made a little lower than the angels, marks the depth of His humiliation : " We behold Jesus, who hath been made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death." So wide is the interval that
stretches between Him and man. He stoops to reach the exalted heights of man's as yet unattained glory.

But the perfection of His identification with us consisted just in this, that He did not, when He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, assume merely the appearance of man or even merely the position and destiny of man, but the reality of humanity. Note the stress laid in the passage, on the reality of the humanity which our Lord assumed, when, as the inspired writer pointedly declares, He was made like to His brethren in all things.

He was made like them in their physical nature : as they were " sharers in blood and flesh, He also Himself in
like manner partook of the same." He was made like them in their psychical nature: as
they suffered and were tempted, He also " Himself hath suffered being tempted." Jesus Christ
is presented before us here as a true and real man, possessed of every faculty and capacity
that belongs to the essence of our nature : as a veritable "son of man," born of a woman, and
brother to all those whom He came to succor. It is because He was in this true and complete
sense what He so loved to call Himself, the Son of man—doubtless with as full reference to
the eighth Psalm as to Daniel's great apocalypse —that He reveals to us in His own life and conduct
what man was intended to be in the plan of God.

We must keep these great facts in mind that we may preserve the point of view of the inspired
writer, as we strive to follow him in looking upon Jesus as the representative man, in whose
humanity man is revealed to us. He is not the representative man in the sense that man is all
that He is. When He entered the sphere of human life, by the assumption of a human nature,
He did not lay aside His Godhead. He is, while being all that man is, infinitely more. He is
God as well as man.

He is not the representative man in the sense that in Him the age-long
process of man's creation was first completed — that His exalted humanity is the goal toward
which nature had been all through the aeons travailing, till now at last in Him the man-child
comes to a tardy birth. He is the revelation of man only in the sense that when we turn our
eyes toward Him, we see in the quality of His humanity God's ideal of man, the Creator's intention
for His creature; while by contrast with Him we may learn the degradation of our sin ; and
happily also we may see in Him what man is to be, through the redemption of the Son of God
and the sanctification of the Spirit. Let us think a little on these things.

And, first, in the quality of Christ's manhood we may see the perfect man, the revelation of what man is in God's idea of him, of what the Creator intended him to be. And what is the quality of Jesus' manhood ?
There is no other word to express it except the great word perfection. Sin ? We cannot think of it in connection with Him. Those who companied with Him testify that He was " without blemish and without spot "; that " He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." The author of our epistle declares that He was " separate from sinners," that He was, in the midst of temptation, " without sin." The story of His life
and sayings leaves us without trace of acknowledgment of fault on His own part, without
betrayal of consciousness of unworthiness, without the slightest hint of inner conflict with sinful
impulses.

And if the quality of His excellence is too positive to permit us even to speak of sin in
connection with it, it is equally too universal to admit of adequate characterization. The excellences
of the best of men may usually be condensed in a single outstanding virtue or grace
by which each is peculiarly marked. Thus we speak of the faith of Abraham, the meekness of
Moses, the patience of Job, the boldness of Elijah, the love of John. The perfection of Jesus
defies such particularizing characterization. All the beauties of character which exhibit themselves
singly in the world's saints and heroes, assemble in Him, each in its perfection and all in perfect
balance and harmonious combination.

If we ask what manner of man He was, we can only respond, No manner of man, but rather, by way
of eminence, the man, the only perfect man that ever existed on earth, to whom gathered all
the perfections proper to man and possible for man, that they might find a fitting home in His
heart and that they might play brightly about His person. If you would know what man is, in the height of His divine idea, look at Jesus Christ.

Is it not well for the world once to have seen such a man ? How easy it is to accuse nature of our faults, to confront God with what we have wrought, and to seek to roll upon our Creator the responsibility for the creatures which our own deeds have made us. How easy to look upon
corruption as the inevitable incident of existence for such beings as men ; and to speak of sin as only the mark of our humanity.

How easily a cynical temper waxes within us as we mix with men in the world's marts and tread with them the devious paths of life. We mark their ways and ask, waiting, like Pilate, for no answer, Who
shall show us any good ? How easily our ideals themselves sink to what we fancy the level of human powers. We note the aims of those who strive about us. We note the aims of the great
figures which flit across the pages of history, commanding the acclamation of all the ages.

We look within at the seething caldron of passions and impulses of our own souls. Do not
all these voices call us to one natural, one unavoidable issue ? If in the far distance we faintly
discover hanging above us the beckoning glimmer of some star of heaven—what is poor wingless
man, that he should hope to rise to grasp it ? Is it not the part of wisdom, as well as the
demand of nature, that worms shall crawl ? Is it not folly unspeakable for such as we to attempt
to mount the skies ? But we see Jesus, and the scales fall from our eyes; in Him we perceive
what man is in his idea, and what it may be well for him to seek to become.

The man Jesus stands before us as the revelation of man's native dignity, capacities, and powers. He exhibits to us what man is in the idea of his Maker. He uncovers to our view, in their perfection and strength, those qualities and forces of good, the ruins of which only we may see in our fellow-men, and enables us to admire,
honor, love, and hope for them, because they still possess such qualities and capacities though in
ruins. To look upon Him is to ennoble and elevate our ideals of life ; the sight of Him forbids
us to forget our higher nature and higher aspirations ; it quickens in us our dead longings to be
like Him, men after God's plan and heart, rather than after our own corrupt impulses.

It is well for the world once to have seen such a man. Once and once only. Ah, there is the pity of it, and there is the despair of it ! In no other than in Him has the ideal ever been realized. And the more we look upon His perfections the more we perceive, as in no other light, how far short of the ideal man have been our highest imaginations.
For we need to note, secondly, that in the light of Jesus' perfect manhood we have, by
contrast, revealed to us what man is in his sin and depravity, what he has made himself in his rebellion from good and from God.

The Greeks had a proverb : " By the straight is judged both the straight and the crooked; the rule is singly the test of both." And so it is. Wherever the straight is brought to light, there inevitably is also the crookedness of the crooked made visible. Let the builder hang his plumbline,
with whatever careless intent, over any wall; and if the wall be not straight, every wayfarer may perceive it. Let the carpenter lay his straightedge
alongside of any board, and every crook and
bend is brought to the instant observation of all.

This is what is meant when the Scriptures tell us that by the law is the knowledge of sin. For the law is for moral things what the plumb-line and the straight-edge are for physical things : it is
the rule by which our hearts are measured and in the presence of which what we really are is made
manifest. We may sin and scarcely know we sin, until the straight-edge of the law is brought against us. Oh, how we fall away from its line of rectitude!

Now, our blessed Saviour, as the perfect one, full of righteousness and holiness, is the embodiment of the law in life. And more perfectly and vividly than any law—though that law be holy and just and good—does His presence among men measure men and reveal what men are. The presence of any good man in
our midst acts, in its due proportion, as such a measure. And, therefore, from the beginning of
the world men have been stung by the presence
of a good man among them to hatred of him, and
have evilly entreated and persecuted him. He is
a standing accusation of their sins. " There is certainly,"
says Miss Yonge in The Heir of Redcliffe —that uplifting story which has been such a factor
in the lives of such men as Mr. William Morris and Dr. A. Kuyper—" there is certainly a ' tyrannous hate' in the world for unusual goodness, which is a rebuke to it."

But no man ever so feels his utter depravity as when he thinks of himself
as standing by the side of Jesus. In this presence, even what we had fondly looked upon as our virtues hide their faces in shame and cry, Depart from us, for we are sinful in thy sight, O
Lord. Lay open the narrative in these gospels, of how the Son of man went about among men, in
the days of His sojourn here below. Note on the one hand the ever-growing glory of that revelation
of a perfect life. And note on the other hand the ever-increasing horror of the accompanying
revelation of human weakness and human depravity.
It could not be otherwise.

When we see Jesus, it must be in the brightness of His unapproachable splendor that we see those about
Him : as it is in the light of the sun that we see the forms and colors and characters of all objects
on which it turns its beams. Especially when we see Him in conflict with His enemies, as we cannot avoid being moved with amazement by the spectacle of His utter perfection ; so must we, in that light, be shocked by the spectacle of the utter depravity of men. Men are revealed
in this presence in their true, their fundamental tones of nature with a vivid completeness in which they are never seen elsewhere.

Now, such a crisis as this, Jesus is bringing into the life of every man upon whom the light of His knowledge shines. No man can escape the test. Christ Jesus has come into the world and He confronts
every one with the spectacle of His perfect humanity. When men are least thinking of Him, lo ! there He is by their side. Every time His
name is mentioned in the assemblies of men, every time His image rises in a brooding human heart, the crisis comes again to human souls.
They may not realize it ; they may prefer otherwise;
they may determine otherwise. But they are being tried and tested against their wills every moment they live in His presence.

Some, like the priests, burn with rage at every thought of the supreme claim He makes upon their homage, and refuse with all violence to have this man to rule over them. Others, like Pilate, yield a languid and chill recognition to His goodness and worth, yet choose the pursuit of pleasure or gain
above the service of Him. Others, like the mob, may in easy indifference prefer some other leader, though he be a robber and a murderer. Thus a
crisis is brought by His presence to every heart ; and a revelation of man in his true depravity is the result.

As He moves through the world the whole race lies at His feet self-condemned. We shudder as, in the light of His brightness, we see man as he is. Yet we have the word of Jesus Himself for it
that God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved. Let us turn our eyes away, then, from the terrible spectacle of a race revealed
in its sin to observe, in the third place, that in the
perfection of Christ's manhood we have the revelation
of what man may become by the redemption
of the Son of God and the sanctification of the Spirit.

We observe that the element of promise is made very prominent in the text and in the wider passage of which the text is a part. Mark those words of hope, " Not yet." " We see not yet all things subjected to him." The psalmist's ascription is then yet to be fulfilled in man himself. In
Jesus' dominion, and in Jesus' perfection, we are to see only the earnest and the pledge. When He entered through sufferings into glory, it was in
the process of bringing many sons unto glory. If He is the sanctifier, they are the sanctified ; and He is not ashamed to call them brethren.

If He became like them in order that He might die in their behalf; this death was to be accomplished in order that He might, by making propitiation for their sins, deliver them from their bondage. In a
word, we are to look upon Jesus in His perfect manhood as our forerunner. In His perfection we are to see the revelation of what we too shall be when He shall have perfected His work in us
as He has already perfected it for us.


Let us bless God for these precious assurances. Without them the sight of Jesus could but bring us despair. Men speak of Him, indeed, as our example ; and we praise God that He has given
us such an example—we bless His holy name
that He has permitted the world to see one such
man. But if He were only our example, as we looked upon Him and saw His perfection and by contrast saw our depravity, who would not cry that this example is too high, we cannot attain unto it!

I fear we do not always consider with what limitations mere example is hedged about. Limitations of space. How narrow a circle can really feel the uplift of even the most moving personal example. At the best, only those who cluster most nearly round the figure of a good man,
however impressive, can be much affected by his example.

Limitations of time. How soon the force of the mightiest personality is drowned in the stream of the years. As the flood of days falls over it how rapidly it becomes at best a story —an empty name. Could Jesus have declared that it was expedient for Him to go away, if it
were only or chiefly as an example that He came into the world ? Would not it have been rather expedient that He should have lived through all
the ages, and kept His living example as a living force before the eyes of men for all time and in every land? Limitations of power. The most inspiring example cannot change the heart, cannot
impart new life to a dead soul. At best it can but deflect the direction of powers already existent and operative.

We thank God that Christ is our example, that we see in Him all that we fain would be. But we thank Him that He is much more than our example ; that He is our life as well.
It is only because He is our life, that as our example He can be our hope and joy. With Him as only our example we could see
in His perfect manhood only what we ought to be,
ought but cannot. Hopeless gloom would inevitably
settle upon our souls. With Him as our life,
who has died for our sins and purchased the sanctifying
Spirit for us, we see in His perfect manhood what we are to be. Do we peer into that mysterious future, with doubt if not dismay ?

We have the precious assurance based upon His perfected work of propitiation and purchase: "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that,
if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him." " We shall be like Him." Our hearts take courage, and we rest on this word. We shall be like Him ! "

We all remember," says Bishop Gore, " the pathetic words of Simmias in the argument with Socrates about the immortality of the soul.
' I dare say/ he says, ' that you, Socrates, feel as I do, how very hard and almost impossible is the attainment of any certainty about questions such
as these in the present life. And yet I should deem him a coward who did not prove what is said about them to the uttermost, or whose heart failed him before he had examined them on every
side. For he should persevere until he has ascertained
one of two things : either he should discover and learn the truth about them ; or, if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let this
be the raft on which he sails through life—not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him.'

' Some word of God ' : it has come to us ; crowning the legitimate efforts, supplying the inevitable deficiencies of human reasoning; satisfying all the deepest aspirations of the heart and conscience. It has come to us, and not as a mere spoken message, but as an incarnate person,
at first to attract, to alarm, to subdue us ; afterwards, when we are His servants, to guide, to discipline, to enlighten, to enrich us, till that which is perfect is come, and that which is in part shall
be done away." Aye, this is it which meets every longing of our hearts. We shall be like Him when we see Him as He is.

Oh, toil-worn pilgrim, weary with your burden, would you know the glory in store for you ? Look at Jesus : you shall be like Him. Are you tempted to despair? Do you shrink from an endless future in which you shall remain for ever yourself? Look at Jesus : not as you are, but
like what He is, you are to be. If we can but attain to such a hope, heaven bursts at once upon our souls. To be like Jesus ! Is this not a glory, in the presence of which all other glories fade
away by reason of the glory that is surpassing ?
When we look at Jesus, we may not—we cannot afford to—forget that we are looking at that which, by the grace of God, we may and shall become.

And you, in whose veins the pulses of youth are still beating, whose hearts are high as you look out upon the still untrodden fields of life fields which you doubt not you are to subdue — you, all of you, no doubt, have your ideals and your heroes. Some figure rises before your eyes, now as I speak to you, whom you would fain be like—a soldier, a thinker, some master of assemblies, some leader of men, some lord of finance.

Or, perhaps, your gentler blood throbs with exhilarated longing as you fancy yourself repeating in your own life the strivings or the accomplishments of some noble woman of history or of romance—some high-minded Hypatia, some patient Griselda, some devoted Saint Catharine a Florence Nightingale, an Elizabeth Fry, a Dora Pattison, a Frances Havergal. What would it be to you to have an angel visitant stand suddenly by your side—as long ago there stood suddenly by Mary, most blessed of women, one with the greeting on his lips of " Hail Mary ! thou that art highly favored !"—and say, " Your wish is granted ; this—all this—you shall be !" Are we so blind that we do not see that this, and more, is just what has come to us? All these heroes of our hearts, great and inspiring as they are, are but men and women like ourselves, touched with our faults, our failings, our sins.

Partial and incomplete, alike in themselves and in their accomplishments, they can provide us with but stepping-stones to higher things. The one perfect man, the one perfect model of life, stands
before us in Christ Jesus. And the voice comes
to us—not the voice of an angel only, but God's own voice of power—proclaiming, Ye shall be like Him!

Could there be another proclamation of equal encouragement, of equal strengthening? Up, brethren, let us take Him, the perfect One, for our model ; let us nurse our longing to be like Him; and let us go forth to the work of life buoyant with the joy of this greatest of hopes,
this most precious of assurances—We shall be like Him ; what He is, that shall we also become!
In the strength of this great hope let us live our life out here below, and in its joyful assurance let us, when our time comes to go, enter eagerly into our glory.

Notes;
1. The power of god unto salvation - B. B. Warfield/Ch. 1 The revelation of man
- The book is available online (free) at Archive.org