Dispensationalism: Part 1. The Last Days

Previous posts in this series: Dispensationalism: It's newer than Darwinism.

 

As we start our look into dispensationalism, a reasonable question is: is it fair to attack classical dispensationalism and opposed to newer, so-called progressive dispensationalism? The answer, I think, is yes, for the following reasons:

1. As pointed out, Dispensationalism is not all that old—less than two hundred years—with the American variety only a bit more than one hundred years old. In criticizing classic dispensationalism, one is not critiquing a dinosaur.
   
2. Along the same lines, progressive dispensationalism has not made it into the pews. Yes it is true that some dispensational academics have "softened" some of the more outrageous positions of classic dispensationalism. And yes, some of Scofield's sillier commentary has been vetted for the New Scofield Bible (1967.) But it is still true that the brand of dispensationalism one still hears from the "man in the street" is the classic variety, further popularized by the success of the Left Behind series.
   
3. Regardless, the newer progressive dispensationalism is an adaptation of the classic. It may be slightly less radical, but it is itself susceptible to criticism of its precursor. If classic dispensationalism is "almost" right, then progressive dispensationalism can withstand assaults on its precursor. If, however, classic dispensationalism is grossly wrong, then progressive dispensationalism is a house built on shifting sand.
   

Before we really get into it, let's start with an interesting observation:

• Dispensationalists think the end is near, but that we are not in the last days.
  
• Non-dispensationalists believe we are in the last days, but generally have no opinion on whether the end is near (amillennialists) or whether it is probably way-off (postmillennialists.)
  

To see how this apparent contradiction is resolved, we must take our first peek at one of the details of dispensationalism. That detail is the fact that there are said to be seven dispensations, and we are in the sixth, not the seventh and last. The sixth dispensation is the dispensation of grace, the seventh is the future earthly kingdom of Christ, the famous millennium. About these we shall have much to say. For now we simply say that the dispensationalists teach "the end is near," meaning that Christ's return is imminent (a pillar of dispensationalism) and, after a seven year tribulation, we'll transition into the "last days" of the millennial kingdom. This is an important point, of which we'll provide more support later: "the last days" refereed to by the prophets are not (according to dispensationalists) now, because the present age, call it the church age, was, by dispensationalism's reckoning, unforeseen by the prophets. Thus, as I said, dispensationalists say then end is near (rapture in your lifetime) but we are not in the last days.

In non-dispensationalist theology, which from now own I will refer to simply if not totally accurately as reformed theology, says we are presently in the last days, and generally says nothing about the timing of the second advent.

Let us look at the concrete disagreement—whether we are in "the last days." Here we turn to scripture. In particular, to Pentecost, when Peter preached:

But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: "'And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. (Acts 2:16-17)

Here Peter clearly aserts that (1) we are in the last days, and (2) these are the very same "last days"—not as unforeseen by the prophet Joel, but as prophesied by Joel.

There are more, including from the writer of Hebrews:

 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. (Hebrews 1:1-2)

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you. (1 Peter 1:10)

To fully appreciate that we are in the last times (but that the end of time is unpredictable and may be many millennia in the future) will have to be postponed until we look into what is meant, precisely, by the kingdom in the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of God.

We must remember that the fact that we are in the last days does not mean that the end of history is near. No, it means that like the bible itself being split into two great testaments, redemptive history is split into the first days (or past days) and the last days, and the last days refer to that time after salvation was accomplished on the cross and the spirit was poured out to the church.

Back to the classroom—the time draws nigh

It has been seven years since I last taught at Christopher Newport University. In a few weeks, I'll return to the classroom. A lot has changed. The campus has been radically transformed by a $500 million capital improvement plan, symbolized by the I. M. Pei designed Ferguson Center for the Arts, a facility so gorgeous it will knock your socks off. The student body has changed—adding a couple hundred points, more-or-less, to its freshman class average SAT score. And teaching has changed—for example I've been told—or perhaps forewarned—that lectures must include more multi-media content.

I was talking to some students at an alumnae party. One of them had this story. He was taking an exam that was open book, and also open laptop (in itself a new concept for me.) To find a relevant entry in his textbook, he searched on Google books and found the desired page. This was faster, he claimed, than the old way: using the book's index. It's a new world.

I have also learned that one of the more serious problems facing universities is excessive game-playing, over the internet, in the dorms. The problem is especially acute for male students. A very difficult problem to solve, because students want to make sure there is open internet access in the dorms before they sign on the dotted line. It's Pandora's Box.

And here is something else that I didn't have to deal with before.

Dispensationalism: It’s newer than Darwinism!

When I first became a Christian, as an adult, after I was already a scientist, I received my first remedial education via Christian radio, namely the Bible Broadcasting Network (BBN.)† The BBN is a fine organization, but its programming is biased toward dispensationalists—people like David Jeremiah and John MacArthur. Not knowing what dispensationalism was, or that I was being instructed therein, I simply accepted the teachings at face value. There is a certain Adrian-Monk-like neatness about dispensationaism that is very appealing. Happenstance would reinforce my early leanings toward "properly dividing" the Word, I bought a Bible—and it turned out that it was a Scofield bible, the footnotes of which are the veritable textbook of classic dispensationalism. I bought it because it was a NASB translation, which someone told me was the best (I think they were right) and just assumed the footnotes represented "standard" noncontroversial biblical commentary.

So I bought it all—the dispensations, the view that God would turn his attention back to his chosen people (the Jews), the fact that this necessitated the rapture of the church, and whole "Left-Behind" eschatology. It made sense to me that the church was not the new Israel. It all made sense.

And then I read a really old book: The Gospel of the Kingdom, (1927) by Philip Mauro. You can find it dead-tree with some effort, and you can find it online here. It was probably the second serious theology book I read, after R.C. Sproul's Chosen by God, and to this day, having read at least a hundred books on theology, none has influenced me as much as either of these.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is a very concise and very intelligently written unmerciful attack on Dispensationalism from a former practitioner and teacher (Mauro.)

Now, an anti-dispensational book written in 1927 has a serious hurdle to overcome for a modern reader—for it predates dispensationalism's greatest success: the formation of the state of Israel in 1947. Unlike ID, dispensationalism actually predicted something, something substantive, and it happened! The creation of Israel, seen a prophetic fulfillment, made dispensationaism and its "Left Behind" end-times view the powerful force it is today: the majority view of American Protestant evangelicals. When reading Mauro discussing how the recreation of Israel is not prophesied—with the knowledge that it had in fact happened—well needless to say Mauro has to be extremely convincing. He is.

By the way, the title to this post comes straight from The Gospel of the Kingdom:

Finally it is appropriate in these introductory remarks to call attention (as I shall have occasion to do once and again in the pages that follow) to the striking and immensely significant fact that the entire system of "dispensational teaching" is modernistic in the strictest sense; for it first came into existence within the memory of persons now living; and was altogether unknown even in their younger days. It is more recent than Darwinism. (Kingdom, Introduction, p. 9.)

(Emphasis in original.) I love it so! If you buy the Left Behind theology, but not evolution, you are accepting the more modern of the two ideas! On a serious side, this is not a trivial point: anything as new and as radical as Dispensationalism needs to address the question of how it escaped the notice of twenty centuries of Christian scholarship. Being new doesn't make it wrong, but it should make us suspicious.

Anyway, I have been struggling with finding something to write about, theologically speaking. In organizing my books in our new house, I came across my dog-eared copy of The Gospel of the Kingdom and decided to read it again. I will be posting summaries of what I read.

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†I was attending a Presbyterian PCA church at the time. The problem is, and I think this is being fair to the PCA, a denomination I really love, is that PCA sermons, reflecting the level of the typical PCA member, are at an advanced level. For a while I was completely lost and relied on the BBN for instruction.

The Matrix, ruffling ID Inc.’s feathers

The ID world never ceases to amaze.

Mike Gene as a new book out called The Design Matrix. I have received a review copy, and am looking forward to reading it.

On UD, Bill Dembski has posted some quotes from the The Design Matrix, including this:

"The vast majority of scientists do not view Intelligent Design as science and I happen to agree with them." (pg. xi)

and this:

"I should make it explicitly clear from the start that I did not write this book to help those seeking to change the way we teach science to our kids. I do not argue that design deserves to be known as science. At best, Intelligent Design may only be a nascent proto-science and thus does not belong in the public school curriculum. Nor does this book argue that evolution is false and deserves to be criticized in the public school curriculum. If the truth is to be told, I oppose such actions." (pg. xi)

Anyone who knows me knows that, as far as these two quotes are concerned, I agree with Mike Gene.

Now, the significance of Mike Gene's statements is not the revelation that "The vast majority of scientists do not view Intelligent Design as science." That goes without saying. (I have no data but I'd bet dollars to donuts that the statement "The vast majority of Christian small-s-scientists do not view Intelligent Design as science" is also true. I can only say that in my experience, anecdotally, it is. ) The significance is that he is yet another scientist sympathetic to ID (and so, I'm guessing, a theist of some form or another) who acknowledges that ID is not science.

It was interesting to read the comments on UD.

Someone named NoChange wrote:

proto-science? That's a slap in the face. People have been doing work on intelligent design for nearly 2 decades, right? It's gone well past being a proto-science, and well into being an established (if controversial) science.

I think it's time to move into the next phase, and do some applied intelligent design work!

The problem here is that UD, unfortunately, is populated with sock-puppets, no doubt due in large part to the fact that the UD moderators routinely banish commenters they don't like. NoChange might be a sock-puppet. If not, one wonders what planet he lives on. ID is not science. It publishes nothing, predicts nothing that is testable, and researches nothing, although it does boast many websites.

Granville Sewell, well known for writing incorrectly about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is fairly insulting:

Interesting. Gene says he does not view ID theory as science, but the quotations you produced seem to suggest he views ID theory as correct. Probably he feels he had to include some anti-ID statements to get the book to be taken more seriously in academic circles.

He accuses Mike of pandering. He is also wrong, logically speaking. ID might be correct (in fact, I certainly think that life was intelligently designed) but that doesn't make it a science. In fact, its correctness has nothing, or little, to do with whether it is a science. In physics we have many conflicting bleeding edge theories—some or all of them are wrong. But they all are science, if they make testable predictions.

But the strangest comment comes from Dembski himself, who wrote, responding to another commenter's claim that German ID supporters are Mike-Gene-esque, that is they do not claim ID is science:

Although I like much about Mike Gene's book, he is an amateur at the philosophy of science. Thus I find those who like Mike try to argue that ID is valuable but not science as engaged in misconceived philosophy of science. I'll probably write a paper on this sometime — when I get time off from my scientific research with Bob Marks's Evolutionary Informatics Lab (www.evoinfo.org). Forgive me for slipping this in, but where is the outcry from your colleagues about the suppression of this work?

Based on publications, Dembski is also an amateur at the philosophy of science, mathematics, and especially biology—but that does not prevent him from arguing about the philosophy of science, mathematics, and biology. He seems unwilling to extend the same courtesy to Mike Gene (whose credentials, as far as I know, are unknown.) One cannot help but to suspect that Dembski's problem with Mike Gene is not based on Mike Gene's lack of multiple Ph.Ds, but with the fact that he has taken the unpardonable ID-isn't-science stand. Furthermore, if Dembski actually cared about such matters, he should be berating most of the commenters on UD, for there is, as far as I can tell, nary a scientific expert among them. Hey Graville, Dembski should shout, stop talking about thermodynamics. You're no physicist.

Ironically, in the UD post just two entries prior (chronologically) to the one in which Dembski chastises Mike Gene for daring to venture into a field for which he is not credentialed, UD contributor GilDodgen argues just the opposite—that formal training is not required to make a contribution to a specialized research area.

But what really struck me about the comment was the "vintage Dembski" expertly packed into a few short blurbs. There is the ubiquitous threat made with bravado—my computer simulation will demolish the competition; my testimony will win the day; I'll bet a bottle of single malt scotch; My science will supplant evolution in just a few years. Here we have: Thus I find those who like Mike try to argue that ID is valuable but not science as engaged in misconceived philosophy of science.
I'll probably write a paper on this sometime.

Don't hold your breath.

In this case, Dembski lived up to his "Isaac Newton of Information Theory" honorific. For he was able to compress all the ID-victimhood meme into his comment. What about the suppression of his research? Why, how can serious research proceed when a scientist is told to move his website to another server? Thank goodness Newton, Maxwell, or Einstein never had to host their websites on another machine—think of the consequences!

Now, I don't always disagree with Dembski. When he's right, he's right. As when he stated:

I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.

Well said.

Again, I am looking forward to reading Mike's book. I have always enjoyed his blog, Telic Thoughts. I know that Mike favors the front-loaded variant of ID, something I know little about. Also, Mike, like most IDers, argues that you do not have to know something about the designer to infer design. I have never been prepared to agree with that statement, so it will be interesting to see if he convinces me.

Memory Lane on StreetView

I was delighted to find out that Google has added Pittsburgh to StreetView. I grew up in inner city Pittsburgh. StreetView provides a trip down memory lane.


The house I grew up in (View Larger Map)


My Junior High School (View Larger Map)


A favorite hot-dog joint (View Larger Map)


My dorm at Carnegie Mellon(View Larger Map)

Robert Marks review of Expelled

Sorry, Robert Marks has withdrawn his permission to post the review. I'll only say that it didn't make me want to see the movie.

New Review of Here, Eyeball This!

The December 2007 issue of the American Scientific Affiliation's Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith contains this review of my novel Here, Eyeball This!

HERE, EYEBALL THIS! by David Heddle. Saga Books, 2005. 295 pages. Paperback. ISBN 1-894936-37-X.


Reviewed by George L. Murphy, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron, OH


David Heddle, who received his Ph.D. in physics from Carnegie Mellon, has written this novel about the first two years of the graduate program in physics at that institution. In the acknowledgements he states that the work is entirely fictional, but his familiarity with Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Mellon campus give it a very real air.

How realistic is the picture of graduate study in physics? A lot has changed since I was in the position of Heddle’s main character, Aaron Dern, at a different university over forty years ago. The hot topics in physics are of course different and there are a lot more foreign students in American graduate programs in the field than there were back then. But some things don’t change. The picture of a student who at first is somewhat intimidated by the fact that all his fellow first year students seem to have much better preparation than he does, only to find out where he stands after the first exams, was very familiar to me.

There is a current of religious discussion running through the book. It doesn’t dominate the story but does play an important role in subtle ways. Not surprisingly, much of this discussion has to do with the anthropic coincidences and the possible implications of them for design arguments. The setting of those discussions within the story allows the author to present them as more than purely scientific, or meta-scientific, deductions. The comment of one professor that “everything matters” could be simply an abstract statement about a holistic view of the world, but it takes on added force for Aaron when he is confronted with an ethical decision on the eve of the qualifying exam.

Aaron’s encounter with a couple of fundamentalists bent on converting him and the way another student calls the bluff of an anti-Christian professor in a comparative religions class broadens the religious picture. It might have been helpful, however, if those chapters could have been connected a bit more with the scientific themes of the book.

The title of the book is eye-catching but it’s natural to wonder what in the world it has to do with physics. Suffice it to say that it has to do with some crude humor of one of the students. Heddle’s characters generally talk the way real people talk and not in the prissy way that characterizes some “Christian fiction.”

Some readers may wonder if the religious arguments in the novel are leading them to a kind of altar call in the last chapter. If so, they will be surprised and sobered to find themselves confronted instead by an event that, in light of those arguments, poses the question of theodicy in a stark fashion. There is a great deal in the novel besides physics and religion – grad student parties, personal relationships, visits to the families of other students, and other aspects of real life. At times it may seem to meander. But when one finishes the book and looks back at the whole story, one sees a narrative that poses some tough basic questions and isn’t content with easy answers. It’s an interesting and helpful complement to the more familiar types of non-fictional work on religion and
science.

Strange Teachings from Hagee’s Cornerstone

In a recent post I made mention of John Hagee and his seriously misguided obsession with Israeli politics. The characterization of "misguided" stems not from the fact that he supports Israel, but that he does so (and insists his parishioners follow suite) based on faulty biblical exegesis.

There is more about Hagee's teaching to dislike. In this Wall Street Journal article on the practice of tithing, we read this:

Steve Sorensen, director of pastoral ministries at Cornerstone [Hagee's church], says the church requires its paid and volunteer leaders to tithe, and teaches new members to do so, although it doesn't make them show proof of income. "When you tithe, God makes promises to us, that he ... is not going to let anything bad or destructive come about," says Mr. Sorensen. For those who don't tithe, he says the Lord "is not obligated to do those things for you."

(Emphasis added.) It is an interesting teaching we have here, that by my own volition I can place God in position where he is obligated to do something nice for me. Why then I would even be in a position to exhibit mercy to God by relieving him of his obligations! This is heady stuff!

I am definitely of the camp that a legal requirement for tithing has gone the way of the prohibition against touching the furniture that a menstruating woman sat upon (Leviticus 15:19-30). But if you want to pick and choose which OT laws have been abrogated and which (the ones you happen to like) are still in effect you'll be in good company, I suppose.

Having said that, I will add that I am also in the camp that thinks tithing is a perfectly sensible guideline. The bottom line, however, is what we read in Paul's instruction to the Corinthians:

Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Cor. 9:7)

We are, churches like Hagee's Cornerstone should note, commanded against giving under compulsion. Now if you, as an individual believer, have a problem about giving freely, I would suggest (a) that you don't give reluctantly and (b) you get into the Word and pray that God would help you become a cheerful giver.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement: it’s not about Justice

One doctrine that is under attack in liberal circles is the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). What PSA teaches is that Christ was punished in our place. That is, upon the cross, Christ actually received our due punishment. PSA, fully developed during the Reformation, doesn't replace but rather incorporates older views that Christ was victorious on the cross—victorious over sin and Satan—by adding the concept of how God's wrath against the elect was fully satisfied. The clarification was that this satisfaction was not as a reward, if you will, for Christ's victory over sin and Satan—but God's satisfaction actually required the suffering Christ endured for the sins of the world.

This view of the Atonement forms a pleasing symmetry with the Reformed view of justification—namely that we are justified before God by an alien righteousness, that of Jesus. So we have a two-way imputation. Our sins are imputed to Christ, while his righteousness is imputed to us. That's a pretty good deal, and if you haven't yet taken advantage of it, I suggest you do.

The scriptural support for PSA is impressive. From Isaiah's Messianic prophecy:

But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed. (Is. 53:5)

to Paul's letter to the Romans

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Rom. 3:23-25)

to many other passages. The message seems clear that Christ received actual punishment on the cross. Since he didn't deserve it, it follows that it was punishment due to someone else (us.) And since he paid it, we won't, lest we accuse God of double billing.

The liberal attacks against PSA, at least the more ridiculous ones, follow the formula that most liberal attacks take, the if I were God, I wouldn't do that, therefore God wouldn't do that line of reasoning.^† The expression of this formula is typically found in liberal insistency that conservatives spend way too much time on the ideas of sin and wrath and not enough time on the nice passages about love and forgiveness. The most notorious recent "in the family" criticism of the PSA is from Steve Chalke, who, in his book The Lost Message of Jesus (Zondervan 2003) famously characterized it as "Cosmic Child Abuse."

Recently I read a reasoned discussion against PSA from Henry Neufeld.

Neufeld argues that God's love and forgiveness, not the PSA, are central to the gospel. I really have nothing to say about that, because I don't have a clear understanding of what is meant by "central." God has love. God forgives. The Atonement happened. It is not that there is something central to the gospel, but instead the gospel in central to all.

But let's examine some specific criticisms. Neufeld, in arguing how PSA proponents address the greatest commandment, writes:

Well, we have at the foundation of PSA God's essential
revulsion at human sin, and even his inability to look at it.

Actually, we have no such thing. This is taken from a very bad Sunday school lesson. There is nothing quite so easy to demonstrate in scripture as God's ability to look at sin with ease. In the garden, after the fall, it was Adam and Eve in apparent distress, not God. In Job, we have Satan involved in a heavenly conference with God, and God doesn't seem to be covering his eyes or in any obvious pain, even in the presence of the very Prince of Lies. If anything, we can demonstrate that it is human sin that abhors and runs from God, not the other way around. For example, recall the famous unclean-lips reaction of Isaiah.

Neufeld then applies this mistake concerning God's supposed weakness in the face of sin:

So how does this evoke my love for God? I am to love God with my whole heart, mind, and soul, even while he loathes me, a sinner, with everything in his being.

Friends, there is not any lesson from the PSA that would even remotely imply that God loathes Neufeld, who is a believer. On the contrary the lesson is that Neufeld is a believer because God loves him (He first loved you), he doesn't loathe him. We are not taught Jacob I loathed, but Esau I loathed even more, but Jacob I loved. Is there any indication that God loathed David, or Abraham, or Paul? Of course there is none whatsoever. The fact that it is so obvious from scripture that God loves believers should alert the reader that Neufeld is misrepresenting the PSA—because there could never be a doctrine that could achieve any traction at all if it was based on God loathing believers.

Neufeld's entire post, in my opinion, can be summarized by saying the PSA is bad because if focuses on God's loathsomeness for man. But that is simply wrong—the PSA focuses on God's love for believers. Even if the PSA is wrong, it seems a little foolish to deny that as a doctrine it in fact emphasizes God's love—otherwise you are left with no motivation for the suffering it supposes Christ endured. Did he endure suffering the punishment the PSA claims because he loathed mankind? It makes no sense whatsoever. Neufeld is not accurately representing the PSA.

He goes on to argue that another problem with the PSA is that it is too man centered. I suppose that's in the eyes of the beholder. It is man centered in Neufeld's view because it allows man to escape punishment. But the punishment escaped is hell—and here I presume that Neufeld also accepts that believers escape hell—so how "avoiding punishment implies man centeredness" is especially a problem for the PSA is not clear.

PSA proponents argue, correctly I would say, just the opposite. It is God centered in that it affirms that the only thing man can successfully contribute to his own salvation is his sins. Man is not good enough to bring anything meritorious; all must be supplied by God.

Reading between the lines, it seems to me that Neufeld is not so much against the PSA but against a different Reformed doctrine: Total Depravity. There is where we indeed find the language of loathsomeness and wrath that Neufeld so dislikes (and who can blame him.) But Total Depravity reflects God's view of the unregenerate, not his view of believers. And the Atonement reflects God's plan for those he loves, not those he hates. The two doctrines do not overlap much, but Neufeld, it seems to me, conflates them.

As for love and forgiveness, wonderful things to be sure, the plain truth is the only group that can self-consistently claim the centrality, to use Neufeld's language, of God's love and forgiveness are the Universalists. Because if you allow that some are lost—some are not forgiven, and clearly you must unless you just want to toss out the whole bible, then you certainly must conclude God's love and his forgiveness cannot be ultimate. They don't trump other attributes of God. If they did then all would be saved. That would be fine by me, but it doesn't reflect scriptural teaching.

However, of those attributes of God that might trump his love and forgiveness, God's justice isn't one of them. God's love and forgiveness do take precedence over his justice—because some receive mercy rather than justice.

It seems to me that the confusion of PSA arises because both sides accept that the pro-PSA side should be argued in terms to God's Justice. And once the pro-PSA side argues that the PSA is true because God demands justice, the anti-PSA side argues, rather convincingly, that the PSA represents a rather perverse form of justice.

Perhaps the problem is we focus on the wrong attribute of God. It is not God's justice—which we know he routinely sets aside in the form of mercy—that is relevant. It is a more mysterious attribute: God's holiness.

It is God's holiness that trumps all. It is God's holiness that is ultimate. And it is his most mysterious attribute.

One can, perhaps by this "trick," sweep the mysteries of the Atonement into a deeper mystery, God's holiness. It may be sleight of hand, but it succeeds in removing from the Atonement the tension that develops when you claim that it is all about the fact that God's justice demands punishment.

Why, for example, does the bible tell us that there is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood, and that the blood of animals or fallen man will not suffice? I really cannot comprehend why God cannot simply forgive everyone (he clearly relaxes justice by giving mercy to some—why not all?) And why must blood be shed? Why not some other form of punishment?

The answer, I believe, is found in God's incomprehensible holiness. The reconciliation that must be made is not because God demands justice, and not because God cannot bear the presence of sin, but rather because in his holiness it pleases God to spend eternity in the presence of a people whom he has cleansed. This cleansing, for some reason we cannot hope to fathom, requires the shedding of perfect blood. It is no use to characterize it as barbaric—-it is simply the way it is, and on this side of eternity believers might as well just accept the fact.

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^†Another form of liberalism, fundamentalism, takes its "liberties" with the bible this way: Well God didn't actually get around to putting that—typically some prohibition—in the bible, but I'm sure he would have if he had thought about it a little more, so we'll add it for him.

Tenure Tack Physics Position

My university has a tenure track opening for next year. Gotta move fast! The announcement, reproduced below, is found here.

For some reason the ad fails to mention that CNU is next door (well, five minutes away) from one of the world's premier nuclear physics laboratories, the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. In other words, this is nuclear physics heaven.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS

The Department of Physics, Computer Science and Engineering at Christopher Newport University anticipates an opening for a tenure track position at the Assistant Professor level in Physics available for Fall 2008. Salary is competitive. We are seeking teacher-scholars who are committed to undergraduate education in the context of liberal learning, who want to engage students in creative intellectual challenges, and who will be active in research and service to the University and community. Our exemplary group of faculty integrates high quality teaching and significant research involving undergraduates and supports a master’s program in applied physics and computer science.

For this position, research in physics education, high-energy nuclear physics, or sensors and instrumentation is preferred. In addition, the successful candidate will be expected to teach introductory physics classes and develop courses for the University’s first year seminar or other courses for the general student population in the Liberal Learning Core. Effective oral and written communication skills are required. The ability to teach entry level Computer Science (Java) or Electronics courses is a plus. A Ph.D. in Physics by August 1, 2008, is required for appointment to a tenure-track position at the rank of assistant professor.

The Department of Physics, Computer Science and Engineering has twenty physicists, computer scientists, and engineers working in a collegial atmosphere. The Department has a variety of laboratories in support of both teaching and research in complex/high speed digital systems, VLSI, parallel processing, communications, information science, lasers and photonics, sensor development, and multimedia graphics, as well as the recently created CNU Institute for Science Education (CISE).

Christopher Newport University, a vibrant, selective, state-supported liberal arts and sciences university of 4,800 students, is located on the Virginia Peninsula between Williamsburg and Virginia Beach. CNU's hallmark is outstanding teaching with a strong commitment to undergraduate education and the liberal studies core; the university will soon seek to shelter a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. The Fall 2007 freshman class of more than 1,200 students was selected from over 7,000 applicants and has an average SAT of about 1171. For further information on CNU, please visit our web site at http://www.cnu.edu. Successful candidates will be committed to effective and creative undergraduate teaching and to a program of scholarly activity having the potential to enrich the intellectual lives of the University's students. Successful candidates will be able to create and deliver rigorous courses and will be able to effectively assist students in meeting high academic expectations. Experience as a student or faculty member at a liberal arts and sciences institution is desirable.

Applicants should submit a vita; a letter describing academic preparation, teaching experience if any, and area(s) of research interest; a statement of teaching philosophy; and three letters of reference to:

Director of Equal Opportunity and Faculty Recruitment
Physics Faculty Search
Search #8032
Christopher Newport University
1 University Place
Newport News, VA 23606-2998

Review of applications will begin on December 14, 2007.

Here, spend this!

I sold a book today! My Amazon ranking went from about 1.4 million to about 0.25 million (and dropping fast--the Amazon ranking scheme is demoralizing! And yes, I check almost daily.)

My publisher is Canadian. I remember the first royalty check was for something like seventy dollars. A few days after depositing it, I got a letter from the bank saying: "Oops, we didn't notice at first but that check was in funny-money Canadian dollars--it's only $64 in 'real money.'"

Things are different now--the deposit becomes bigger in American dollars. Our weak currency rocks!

Sorry Paul, it’s really like a drug

On Wes Elsberry’s blog, there is a fascinating transcript of John Buell’s testimony vis-à-vis the Dover case. I had never read nor heard about it before. Forget about the larger picture of the Dover trial and just read it with this line of thought. Buell is the President of the Foundation for Thought and Ethics. That is the outfit behind the publication of The Design of Life and Of Pandas and People. The latter, of course, was front stage at the Dover trial, and now, sadly, is probably best known for the fact that it has introduced the transitional fossil cdesign proponentsists into the vernacular. Sigh. Perhaps it is well and good that when Christians set out to deceive, we are not very competent. At least that’s something.

Anyway, Buell’s testimony, under cross examination, reveals this about FTE’s raison d'etre:

• The FTE provides documentation to the IRS indicating that its primary exempt purpose is promoting and publishing textbooks presenting a Christian perspective.
  
  
• That the FTE was incorporated with goals both religious and educational, and FTE seeks to make known the Christian gospel and understanding of the Bible.
  
  
• The and FTE fundraising document states that “The Foundation for Thought and Ethics has been established to introduce Biblical perspective into the mainstream of America’s humanistic society, confronting the secular thought of modern man with the truth of God’s word.”
  
  
• In a letter, written after the publishing Pandas, Buell wrote: “Our commitment is to see the monopoly of naturalistic curriculum in the schools broken. Presently school curriculum reflects a deep hostility to traditional Christian views and values, and indoctrinates students to this mindset through subtle but persuasive arguments.”
  
  
• Buell, in trying to find a legitimate publishing house for Pandas, projects an explosive market for Pandas, should it come to pass that the Supreme Court would permit state mandated teaching of creationism in public schools. (The Supreme Court, by the way, did not.)

Now, I would say that while none of this is really my cup of tea, I have no problem, except a nebulous unsavory feeling, with FTE as described by the bulleted list above. I guess I would characterize FTE, as described above, as well-intentioned but misguided.

No, the problem with FTE and John Buell is that (read the testimony) he runs away, as fast as he can, from the description above. Why? So that he can pretend that Pandas and its proponents and its publishing are all about science, and nothing about religion. No sir, no religion here. The unintentional religious talk is blamed on, among other things, lawyers using standard boilerplate.

That, in a nutshell, is what I hate so much about the ID movement. The “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” tactic. It’s wrong because it necessarily presupposes that the world is stupid. And it is especially wrong because it disavows (though not sincerely—and I couldn’t say if that is better or worse) its noble goal of spreading the gospel.

Atheists Behaving Stupidly

I know that I often present a split personality in my blog posts. On theological matters I am conservative to the core. By that I mean that I both accept and defend both biblical infallibility and inerrancy. I am also about 95% Reformed by the measure of, say, the Westminster Confession. But when it comes to political matters I am lunatic fringe in the other direction—alienating some of my Christian friends. I am strongly in favor of separation of church and state (being a Baptist I recall how we invented it, having fared poorly under both Catholic and Presbyterian theocracies.) I don't get riled up by political issues. Does a state want to make gay marriage legal? I don't care, arguing that the New Testament gives us no charge to make Christian morals the law of the land—only the law of our hearts and the guidelines for our behavior. "In God We Trust" on the coinage? "One nation under God" in the Pledge? I could not care less—it's probably better to remove the lie. Evolution vs. ID? The former is science even though a) it doesn't have all the answers and b) it is certainly wrong in the sense that further research will result in some of its present teachings requiring modification, while the latter (ID) isn't—so teach the former in science class. War on Christmas? What do I care if a clerk in a store says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas? We are not even told to celebrate Christ's birth—but even as we do, it does not call for a habitual echoing of a phrase—instead it should be about a solemn, thankful, and yes joyful remembrance, among Christians, of the first advent. The new atheists? While I am disappointed that their leaders present such infantile arguments—they are generally on the level of Ann Coulter articles—they are rabble-rousing and choir-preaching rather than informative, educational, challenging, thought-provoking or enlightening-- I generally applaud the fact that they are making atheism more acceptable. After all, they cannot detract from the number saved, so the only effect they can have, if any, is to make atheists come out of the closet. Since I see only negative potential of atheists claiming (from peer and societal pressure) to be Christians, I think this is ultimately a good thing.

Well, just to show that I am not always on the side of the bad guys, I will tell you that I think the atheists fighting the Utah Crosses are just as dumb as rocks.

I can sense, regardless of my position, the significance of debates on prayer in public schools, or ID in the science curriculum, or gay marriage, or abortion rights. These are substantive issues, and I can understand how many people on both sides want to dive into the debate and make a difference.

The Utah Cross case is not. The atheists fighting the crosses are engaged in nit-picking, and nit-picking tends to make the pickers look dumb and ultimately to hurt their cause.

The crosses are not an infringement of the separation of church and state. They are privately funded memorials for State Troopers who were killed in the line of duty. They were placed, with permission, on state land. They certainly do not establish any religion. They do not evangelize or proselytize. They are a modest acknowledgment of service, and therapeutic for the families left behind. A reasonable use of small patches of state land—not harmful to anyone except the hypersensitive but beneficial to some. And the cross, while a symbol of Christianity (though not of Mormonism, the religion of the majority of the troopers being memorialized), is also a universally recognized symbol of something else: someone died. More accurately, someone died and we want to take note of the fact. When I see a cross on the side of the road, I do not immediately think of Jesus, or the Crucifixion—I think: somebody died, right there, as the result of a car crash.

This is a stupid fight for the atheists. It is a waste of political capital. It is analogous to the anti-evolution stickers placed in text books—a fight over a non-substantive issue that isn't worth the consequence of seriously pissing people off. It's just a vulgar display of power. This doesn't matter, but we might just pull it off, so let's try. Dumb. Really dumb. In small matters it is always better to compromise, to take the high road, to be gracious, to be accommodating. The proponents of text book stickers didn't understand that, and their intellectual cousins, the atheists fighting the Utah crosses, don't either.

The Design of a Bad Idea

The newly released ID book, The Design of Life, exemplifies everything that is wrong with ID.

1. It claims to be science, but it is, as is all ID, entangled with religion. It would be much better if it admitted to be apologetics that was of a science bent. That is, ID should not falsely claim to be science when in fact it is religiously motivated—it should embrace that which it seeks to hide. There is, I'm sure we all recall, an apostolic lesson about not being embarrassed about the gospel.
   


2. It is essentially a vanity publication, and is being released with great fanfare and a Benny-Hinn-like request for money. Science does not work that way. I hope Christians with money to give will consider giving it to charity or missions rather than to this exercise in egotism. (And they should not forget that one author is a member of a heretical cult, the Moonies. He should be evangelized, not applauded as a culture warrior.)
   




3. The authors, who are leading ID proponents, make the sort of claims that should not accompany the release of scientific literature. William Dembski, yet again, declares victory by fiat: "The Design of Life shows why the better arguments and stronger evidence are now on the intelligent design side." And Jonathan Wells argues by philosophical assertion: "The Design of Life shows why it is no longer possible to be an intellectually fulfilled Darwinist." These guys simply never learn the lesson: ixnay the yperbole-hay, it's not helpful. Not at all. If you have a theory, as you claim, then do the research, and publish the results.
   

What's new here? Nothing. This is not science. It is, at best, a misguided missile in the culture wars. At worst, it is an attempt at a money making venture.

Still in flux--updates

After a month and a half in Virginia, we finally found a house. We close a week from today.

We had an offer and tentative agreement on one several weeks ago, but the sellers declined to make some small repairs that we requested, so we walked. Someone forgot to tell them it is a buyer's market. For rejecting our request to make repairs that would likely cost less than one of their mortgage payments, they lost the sale, and in the current housing economy the house could stay on the market for months. I think they interpreted our offer to close in two weeks (the house is empty) to mean that we were desperate to move in and would not walk.

Although staying longer in our month-to-month furnished townhouse was both annoying and expensive, we are much happier with the house that we found. The sellers of this house (it is also empty—almost every house we saw was empty because people are not selling in this market unless they are relocated) were very accommodating in agreeing to make the modest repairs resulting from the inspection.

I'll be a relatively close neighbor to one of my favorite Christian bloggers, Tom Gilson.

We are enjoying our new-old church—the one we attended before moving to New Hampshire in early 2002. However, we have not rejoined as of yet. The church is very small (about 40 people in the pews) and is searching for a pastor. I am waiting to see who they hire—although I am not at all certain that's the right thing to do.

Yesterday the interim pastor told a story of a friend of his in the construction business. This friend, it seems, likes to share the gospel on construction sites. After he does so, he has to go somewhere private, where he weeps. The cause of his weeping? He can't believe that God would use him as a messenger. That was a convicting message for me. I understand, intellectually, that we preach the gospel because we are commanded to and also because it is an unspeakable privilege. But, unlike this man, I never feel as if it is a privilege. I always feel more like it is an intellectual challenge. I would really like to feel the weight of what I am doing emotionally.

Anthony Flew? *Yawn*.

Can someone please explain the excited hubbub among my fellow Christians concerning Anthony Flew? The “famous atheist” converted, it is alleged, from atheism to deism.

Big deal. That’s like being traded from the 0-8 Miami Dolphins to the 0-8 St. Louis Rams.

Folks, deism (at least among those who, like Flew, have surely heard the gospel) is no better than atheism.

There is nothing here to celebrate. Nothing.

Fellow Christian Physicists...

Here is an announcement for a faculty position at Union University in Tennessee.

Not many deserve a serious fisking more than

the regrettable Joel Osteen and his hideous prosperity gospel.

The always reliable Michael Horton is up to the task.

HT: Craig.

UPDATE: Tim Challies also posted an excellent (as always) review of Osteen's latest.

Flip sides of the same, dumb argument

• The Finnish school shooter was motivated by Natural Selection. See how the theory of evolution inevitably leads to murder?
  
• All the 9/11 hijackers were Young Earth Creationists. See how Young Earth Creationism leads to terrorism?

The truth is simple. Bad people will co-opt whatever is convenient to rationalize their evil. End of story.

Beliefs have consequences. But the tragic results of a gross distortion or misapplication of a theory, ideology, or religion is far short of a proof of the culpability of the underlying beliefs. Sincere people believed, incorrectly, that Christianity endorsed slavery. That’s not an indictment of Christianity, it’s the fault of those who did not, willfully or ignorantly, get it right.

New Profs: Tenure won’t matter!

Heretical nutcase Harold Camping is at it again. Camping, the president and co-founder of the Family Radio Network has, among other theological monstrosities, declared the end of the church age. Camping has sent notice that The Spirit has, by God, been formally withdrawn from all churches, save his own radio ministry. Camping’s model: leave your church, join a like-minded local group, and gather ‘round the radio on Sunday to listen to the sole remaining orthodox ministry—and more importantly the sole ministry still in God’s favor: Harold Camping’s.

He is also famous for predicting the end of the earth and the Second Coming in 1994. We can, I suspect, agree that his prediction was wrong.

But wait, there’s more! He has a relatively new book of which I wasn’t aware until I saw it discussed on Ed Brayton’s blog. The book, published in 2005, is: Time Has an End: A Biblical History of the World 11,013 B.C. – 2011 A.D.

The title is a spoiler. Camping admits (“oops, my bad!”) that he was wrong with his 1994 prediction. The real end will come in 2011! Camping writes:

About thirteen years ago, I wrote the book entitled 1994?. In it, I set forth a great amount of information derived solely from the Bible that suggested very strongly that there was a high likelihood that the world would come to an end sometime in the year A.D. 1994. Of course, the world did not end, and now, eleven years later, the world is still here.

However, during the past eleven years, God has been opening up to many who are studying the Bible considerable additional information which relates to the unfolding of God's salvation plan. When this additional information was integrated into the information which was set forth in the book 1994?, we knew that indeed the year 1994 was an extremely important year.

Moreover, we will discover that now, as we understand the Bible, it was the year 1994 in which Christ came a second time to begin the completion of the evangelization of His true people. We also have found considerable evidence that there is a high likelihood that the year 2011 will be the year in which the end will come. Nothing has changed in God's program. The Bible has simply made correction on our course toward truth!

Well, alrighty then!

Is the New Testament Anti-Semitic?

Well that depends, of course, on what you mean by anti-Semitic. The New Testament does not advocate any sort of mistreatment of Jews. However, it is quite clear that (normatively speaking) Jews, like anyone else, must come to know Christ to be saved. And nowhere does it demand a special view toward the modern state of Israel. If you are a Christian, base your support (or lack thereof) for Israel on your politics. Do not base it on erroneous interpretations of prophecy. Supporting Israel because she is the lone democracy in the region is defensible. Supporting Israel because her enemies tend to hate us is defensible. Supporting Israel because the bible tells us to is just plain wrong.

Many Christians believe that the founding of modern Israel was in fulfillment of prophecy. God, this argument goes, has unfulfilled promises made to the Jews. This is not true. The founding of Israel was, as all things are, ordained by God. He wasn't surprised by the development. But it does not complete any outstanding biblical prophecy. As for any unconditional promises remaining unfulfilled: that's the empty set. There were many promises that God made with the condition of obedience—those promises are null and void. But the unconditional promises were satisfied:

⁴³ So the LORD gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there. ⁴⁴ The LORD gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the LORD handed all their enemies over to them. ⁴⁵ Not one of all the LORD's good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled. (Joshua 21:43-45)

Extreme pro-Israel Christians such as John Hagee, author of the hideous In Defense of Israel (which I may review at a later date) are simply and seriously mistaken. He claims that the bible calls Christians to do much more than pray for the state of Israel. He is right and wrong—the bible does call us to do much more, it calls us to proselytize, i.e., preach the gospel, to the Jews. He is wrong because proselytizing the Jews is the one thing he does not demand of his followers. He prefers to stand side-by-side with the political leadership of Israel to further Israel's political agenda. As stated earlier, this may be a defensible position based on your political views. But Hagee, and many other Christians, falsely claim the bible as their mandate.

Back to the question of anti-Semitism. Have you ever actually read what Paul (who everyone knows loved the Jews and even offered his own salvation if they could be saved) had to write about unconverted Jews? After being repeatedly attacked on his missionary journeys, Paul wrote:

 ¹³And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe. ¹⁴For you, brothers, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, ¹⁵who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men ¹⁶in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last. (1 Th. 2:13-16)

By any modern sensitivities—these words taken from scripture (and not out of context) would be considered anti-Semitic. Paul is literally calling the Jews "Christ killers."

(Aside: the wrath of God is no doubt reference to the impending end of the Jewish age in AD 70, when the Temple was desecrated and destroyed, over a million Jews killed, many enslaved, the rest mostly scattered—the end of Israel and of the sacrificial system. In my opinion, that was the last time you have any prophecy about God's wrath on a political entity—and it denoted the end of the transition period between the old and the new. God, according to my reading of scripture, no longer deals with nations but rather with those in his church and those not.)

Some extremely pro-Israel Christians also argue that taking the position that Jews cannot be saved without accepting Christ is also anti-Semitic. Well, it is not anti-Semitic; it is the proper position for Christians to take; although there is something important to remember.

What I mean is this: as people we can base our judgment only on the visible fruits of others. We are called to treat as Christians those proclaim acceptance of the power of Christ's shed blood to pay for their sins. And we are called to treat anyone who doesn't as an unbeliever. Because of our inability to do anything else, God has told us: pay attention to the externals and act accordingly—but the actual Book of Life is off limits. We will not bat a thousand using this approach.

Scripture, read carefully, tells us that nobody comes to the Father except by the Son. But while this is obviously strongly correlated with those who can present a testimony, in truth it is slightly different. Coming by the Son means presenting oneself before the Father cloaked in the righteousness of Christ. Could Christ offer the protection of His righteousness to some who don't follow the normative route to salvation? Who am I to say no? God will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy. I am instructed, in Matthew 7, to treat those who deny Christ as unbelievers and those who don't (and back up their claim with deeds) as believers. But conspicuously absent from that instruction is a guarantee that by this methodology I'll perfectly distinguish the saved from the lost.

With infants and the mentally handicapped we understand this intuitively. We all are Calvinists when it comes to dead babies. While it doesn't affect my actions toward them in any way, I have the same feeling about Jews, Moslems, (both of which should be proselytized) and the millions who never hear the gospel. If they don't convert, I don't expect that they are saved, and I don't treat them as if they are saved, but I do hold out a hope for any individual that in God's sovereign plan he will have mercy upon them, and I do remember that I have no say whatsoever when it comes to the question of who gets covered by the righteousness of Christ.

Modern Physics

I found out I'll be teaching undergraduate Modern Physics in the spring. I'm delighted with that assignment. I'm not sure if I'll post my notes here, or just links to another, yet to be instantiated, blog.

This is good news:

A renowned political activist pastor has been released for too much politics, not enough Gospel.

Amen to that.

Terry Fox resigned, under pressure, from the Immanuel Baptist Church in Wichita, Kansas.

From the article:

For years, Fox flaunted his allegiance to the Republican Party, urging fellow pastors to make the same "confession" and calling them "sissies" if they didn't. "We are the religious right," he liked to say. "One, we are religious. Two, we are right."

Shameful. Can you find anything resembling this in Paul's instructions to Timothy? I can't.

Look how amazed he is that the members of his church finally had enough:

Fox, who is 47, said he saw some impatient shuffling in the pews, but he was stunned that the church's lay leaders had turned on him. "They said they were tired of hearing about abortion 52 weeks a year, hearing about all this political stuff!" he told me on a recent Sunday afternoon. "And these were deacons of the church!"

Keep in mind that the members of Immanuel Baptist are undoubtedly staunchly anti-abortion, anti gay marriage, etc. It wasn't that Fox was preaching to a liberal audience uncomfortable with his views on abortion, it was that they finally recognized that the culture wars should not take precedence over preaching the gospel. We have only one commission from Jesus, and it is not to make it illegal for people to sin. It is to spread the gospel.

How did I miss that?

I was asked a couple years ago to step out of my generation and lead a bible study for twenty-somethings. There I witnessed the most instantaneous, phase-transition-like conversion to the predestination view of salvation. Typically those who convert from the Arminian to the Augustinian view do so gradually. A good deal of kicking and screaming is often involved. And finally, there is usually an extended period of cognitive dissonance—where those struggling exegetes will be heard to mutter: I agree that's what scripture teaches but I just can't believe it.

But on this occasion that is not what happened. We were reading Sproul's Chosen By God, and through the early chapters, where Sproul sets up the basis for predestination. Essentially Sproul paves the way by first discussing Original Sin—the idea that man, in his natural state, is morally incapable of choosing God. That is, rather than teaching predestination first and then, as an afterthought, adding and here's why we need predestination, Sproul first demonstrates why the bible had better teach predestination or, in fact, we all are lost.

When he does get to predestination he uses all the usual verses from the gospels, especially John's. Then he uses Roman's chapter nine and the coup de grâce of grace. There we have Paul repeating the startling claim that before they were born God loved Jacob and hated Esau. It of course matters little if the "hate" God has for Esau resembles anything like what we call hate—the bottom line is God's disposition toward Esau is presented in stark contrast with that He holds for Jacob—proving that, unless Esau is the universal exception, God does not love all people just the same. Of course Paul makes it crystal clear what is going on here, giving us the why in verse 11-12: in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—.

The real power of Romans 9, in regards to the predestination debate, is how Paul segues from this troubling revelation about Jacob and Esau. Here he tells us something that shakes the Arminian's foundation: there is no level playing field. Before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad, God looked favorably upon Jacob (call it love) and withheld that favor from Esau (call it hate.)

Why did God do this?

Here the Arminian has hope. He rubs his hands in anticipation. Surely it will be because God looked forward in time and foresaw that Jacob would accept Him while Esau would reject Him. Paul, they hope, will make that clear and end the debate once for all.

But that is not the case. Paul's explanation is the most un-Arminian explanation possible. He tells us the, in possibly the most un-Arminian and most important lesson in scripture, that God will show mercy to whomever it pleases God to show mercy. He tells us that we have no right, as clay, to question what the potter makes or does with us. In fact, he tells us, in truly startling language:

Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? ²²What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? ²³What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—(Rom 9:22-23)

On that night when we reached this point in the study, a young man (let's call him Jason because that's his name) who takes a very studious and intellectual approach to bible study, but who had been politely antagonistic to the predestination view, suddenly announced something to the effect: Well that's it; game over man, the question is settled, why didn't we just start here…

It was really quite remarkable.

 

Transitions

We have moved from New Hampshire to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. It happened very quickly--we envisioned staying in NH until January. But here we are, in temporary housing, looking for a house--a process that is much more time consuming when you have the luxury of being picky.

At any rate, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind.

We went back to a church we left six years ago when we moved to New Hampshire. It is a "Reformed Baptist" church. It was small when we left--maybe 40 members--and in the intervening years it has dwindled down to about half that size. And at the moment it has no permanent pastor, although the search is on.

I also visited the Presbyterian (PCA) church we attended before joining the Reformed Baptist church. In the last six years I have moved closer to the Presbyterian position--almost convicted of the truth of paedobaptism. However, I could survive quite happily in the Reformed Baptist church--agreeing to disagree--but we will wait until a pastor is named before rejoining officially.

That's about all I have until things settle down. We have made an offer on a house--but I suspect the seller will not come down as much as we hope.

I must say I have enjoyed my break from the ID wars. I haven't even read Uncommon Descent or Panda's Thumb for a few weeks and am blissfully ignorant of the many controversies du jour that I must have missed.

You may notice a change in this blog...

when posting resumes.

For one thing, I will post less on ID. In particular, there will be far less comment on ID's flagship site: Uncommon Descent. The reasons are many. One is that the whole storyline of materialist conspiracies has grown too boring. Another is that the UD site is becoming more and more bizarre: smear campaigns; creepy, obsequious commenters; posts appearing and disappearing, sometimes without comment and sometimes with poorly expressed "notpologies" offered as explanations; dissenters getting banned willy-nilly; strangely unfunny posts labeled as humor; etc. The bottom line is that criticizing UD is starting to evoke an unpleasant queasiness in my gut—a kind of feeling of shame that you might associate with childhood teasing of some unpopular classmate.

I will continue to post on theology.

As for the science posting, that will shift from ID commentary to reporting on actual experimental nuclear physics. In particular, I'll be writing about the projects, running and proposed, at the world class Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Most often I'll discuss what is happening in TJNAF's Hall B.

Well, that's the plan.

OT: Movers come tomorrow to take our belongings from New Hampshire to Virginia. It's a tough, bittersweet time for us. Yesterday we had a farewell party at our church. That was quite emotional.

Hiatus for at least two weeks

Because of all the turmoil involved in a move. We are moving, next week, from New Hampshire back to the Williamsburg area of Virginia.

It is so very sad to leave our church and friends (which are almost but not totally one and the same.) It is also sad to leave the beautiful state of New Hampshire, although Virginia is no slouch in that department.

Come January, I will be teaching physics here. Which is right next door to here.

We expected to move in January. Houses in this area are staying on the market for three to four months, and going for 90% of the asking price. Our house sold in ten days, at 98.5% of our asking price. My wife has always been fascinated with those shows teaching how to stage a house for resale. She put that acquired knowledge to use expertly.

Part of Heddle with the Holy Spirit indwelt: Thank you God for making this go so smoothly.

Part of Heddle that is the "body of death" being dragged about: Rats, we priced the house too low.

To my New Hampshire friends who may read this: we love you dearly, promise to be back (maybe for Caleigh), and offer our new home (which we haven't found yet!) for you to visit. Use it as a launching pad to visit Williamsburg, Busch Gardens, Water Country USA, Virginia Beach, the Mariner's Museum, Jamestown, etc. Oh—and for those friends so inclined, the best track in all of NASCAR.

Our time here has been an unimaginable blessing for us.

More on Philosophical vs. Methodological Naturalism

Conflating PN and MN is not just the sin of the ID movement. The second Truth Project video was quite guilty. They presented Carl Sagan's view of the cosmos (the cosmos is all there ever is, was, and will be) without pointing out that this was Sagan the Astronomer speaking as Sagan the (rank amateur) philosopher. Science makes no statement whatsoever about whether or not the cosmos is all there ever was, is, or will be.

I don't know if Sagan would admit that he was, at that moment, preaching philosophy and not teaching science. But the Truth Project people should have pointed all this out, if they are in fact deeply committed to the truth. As they left it, I am certain that the impression for many was that a scientist (Sagan) speaking as a scientist was claiming that science teaches there is no God.

My cynical fear is the Truth Project had no interest providing instructional clarity in this instance—that they find it advantageous to confuse philosophical and methodological naturalism, in order to further the anti-science bias that is part of the Focus on the Family world view.

Now in the video they showed another egregious example of PN/MN conflation from Cornell biologist William Provine. This charming man is a master of confusion. He writes:

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.

What is interesting here, and it is pure speculation, that those who agree with Provine would be strange bedfellows indeed. They would include some of the new atheist school who would like to conclude that evolution scientifically proves what Provine claims as its inescapable consequences, and those anti-Science Christians who, to vilify science, would also agree that such nonsense is the scientific consequence of evolution.

Rerun: Sunday School on Satan

NOTE: This is a rerun from a post in 2003. I am replaying it because I am getting hits from an Evangelical Outpost link to my Al Sharpton of Information Theory post. The link, however, is not concerned with what I wrote about the ID movement in the bulk of the post, but what I wrote about Satan in the brief introduction. I hope this helps to clarify.

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Satan

This is a brief study into the nature of our chief adversary, Satan. We all know that Satan (the name indeed means "adversary") is a fallen angel. So it is useful to start by taking a look at what scripture says the about characteristics and capabilities of angels.

1) What are Angels, what are their characteristics?

As an aside, it is worth noting that in the New Testament the word angel (angelos) appears more frequently than the word for sin or love (agape). Angels should receive more attention than they are generally given. Let's take a look of some of their qualities.

• They are Creatures

The first and most important characteristic is that they are creatures—spirit creatures, to be exact. This means they have none of the qualities that are reserved for God. In particular, they have none of the omnis. They are not:

Omnipotent (all powerful)
Omniscient (all knowing)
Omnipresent (in all places)

• They have been around longer than man

Angels have been here a long time, since at least day two (or day-age two) of creation. When Job questions God and God responds with his own line of inquiry, we read:

⁴ "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. ⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? ⁶ On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone- 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? (Job 38 4:7)

• Their number is large

Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? (Matt. 26:53)

This verse places a minimum of 144,000 (12×12,000) on the number of angels. Other scripture indicates that the count is probably much higher. Angels are sometimes referred to as heavenly host, a word that can also be translated as army.

¹³Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ¹⁴"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." (Luke 2:13-14)

• They are heavenly, spiritual; their purpose ministering to the saved

An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. (Luke 22:43)

Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? (Heb 1:14)

• They are mighty, but limited

As we have already mentioned, they cannot be in more than one place at a time. They also have limited power:

¹² Then he continued, "Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. ¹³ But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. ¹⁴ Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come." (Dan 10:12-14)

The angel was detained in some sort of struggle with an evil spiritual being, the "king of Persia." This demonstrates both limited power and confinement to one place at one time.

Angels are also have limited knowledge

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Matt. 24:36)

¹⁰Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, ¹¹trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. ¹²It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. (1Pet 1:10-12).

Nevertheless, they are mighty by human standards:

Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: "With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again. (Rev. 18:21)

• They are not to be worshipped

⁸I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. ⁹But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!" (Rev 22:8-9)

• They have a hierarchy

But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" (Jude 1:9)

The prefix arch is from the Greek arka meaning chief. We use it in such terms as archbishop, archenemy, and architect (chief builder). Michael appears to be a chief warrior angel, and Gabriel a chief messenger angel.

• They are Metamorphic

They sometimes take on the appearance of man. At other times they have fantastical and dazzling visages. Sometimes they have six wings, sometimes four. Sometimes they cover their feet and eyes with their wings, and sometimes they have many eyes all over their heads. I don't know if they have "natural" appearances or just adapt as necessary. The bible talks about seraphim and cherubim, but doesn't draw any distinctions between the two. In artwork, seraphim are usually depicted as majestic or fearsome while cherubim look like little fat baby angels. There is no basis in scripture for such a rendering.

• They don't marry, they don't die

³⁵But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, ³⁶and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. (Luke. 20:35-36)

2) Satan's Fall

A few years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger made a horrible movie called The End of Days where he battles Satan, played by Gabriel Byrne. I went to see the movie because I had read the book (also not very good). However, the book had one great line. I am working from memory so I don't know if I will get it exactly right.

In one scene, the Ahh-nold character is fighting the devil in an apartment near the top of a high-rise. Somehow he tosses the devil out the window. He falls fifteen or twenty stories and lands on top of a car, demolishing it. The devil crawls out of the wreckage and gets up on the sidewalk and begins brushing debris from his clothes. A man who witnessed the whole event came up to him and said: "Are you Okay? That was some fall!" The devil brushed off some more dust, looked skyward, and replied. "I've had worse."

Great line, simply perfect.

Anyway, I went to the movie just to see that one line acted out. However, they didn't use it. The fall from the high-rise was there, but not the "I've had worse" line. I guess they thought nobody would get it.

Indeed, he did have a fall that was much worse.

¹² "Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: " 'You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. ¹³ You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. ¹⁴ You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. ¹⁵ You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. ¹⁶ Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. ¹⁷ Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. (Ez. 28:12-17)

When Satan fell, he took some angels with him. These fallen angels are now called demons. How many? One passage in Revelation, highly symbolic, seems to suggest that Satan took as many as 1/3 of angels with him.

³Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. ⁴His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. (Rev. 12:3-4)

The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. (Rev. 12:9)

3) Underestimating Satan

We once lived in a neighborhood where our next door neighbor was the minister at one of the largest churches in the city, a Lutheran church. To get to know him and his wife better, we all went out to a seafood restaurant. Somehow we got to talking religion, and the subject of the devil came up. The minister's wife allowed as to how she did not believe in the devil.

Not knowing the man, I got a little nervous. This could be uncomfortable or even a little embarrassing. How would he correct his wife? Would he smack her on the back of the head? Call her stupid, roll his eyes, or would he correct her in love? He did none of these things. He smiled, nodded in agreement, and went back to work on his plate of shrimp.

One of the reasons we underestimate the devil is that we have been hoisted with our own petard. In medieval times, people were greatly concerned about the devil. They sought a way to attack him and discerned that his greatest weakness is pride. So they made a mockery of him, silly caricatures of a comical red creature with horns and a pitch fork. Soon the devil was incorrectly relegated to the menagerie of mythological creatures, witches and goblins. He wasn't taken seriously anymore. That suits him just fine.

In churches, dismissing Satan usually goes hand-in-hand with de-emphasizing man's depravity. Man is turned into a creature born innocent and good who learns to be bad. The inevitable consequence is a weakened view of God. For if there is no devil, and man is basically good, then how do you answer the question why do bad things happen to good people? You answer by saying God would like to prevent such things, but he is powerless to do so. He is a weak pitiful god, sobbing in the corner at the tragedies befalling such nice humans. Only a proper understanding of evil and sin leads us to realize that the mystery question is not why bad things occasionally happen to good people. The real mystery is why don't bad things happen to all of us all the time?

It is not just "liberal churches" that underestimate Satan. In spite of the fact that our Lord warned him, the apostle Peter, prior to Jesus' arrest, underestimated him:

³¹"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. ³²But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." ³³But he replied, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death." (Luke 22:31:33)

Notice that Satan had to ask before he could sift Peter as wheat. In some manner he was given permission, which is why Jesus prayed for Peter. Peter was no match for Satan. As we know, he went on to deny Christ three times. Yet we believe that Peter's restoration and subsequent ministry brought more glory to God than was lost in his temporary defeat.

Like angels, Satan and demons are stronger and smarter than we are. The demons were the first to recognize Christ for what He truly was:

²⁸ When He had come to the other side, to the country of the Gergesenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way. ²⁹And suddenly they cried out, saying, "What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?" (Matt 8:28-29)

4) Overestimating Satan

Another mistake, more common among conservative evangelical Christians, is to overestimate Satan.

There are two problems that come with overestimating Satan. One is that it elevates him beyond what he deserves. In effect, we are rerouting glory from God to Satan. The second, more serious problem is that it distracts us from focusing on our own sin. Unchecked, we can develop a "devil made me do it" attitude. In truth, the devil cannot make you sin. We will see he has two main prongs of attack, temptation and accusation. What he does not have is coercion.

Christianity is not a religion that teaches dualism. We do not believe in an eternal struggle between good and evil. There is no Yin and Yang. Good, meaning God, is in absolute control, even over evil, and is in no danger of "losing".

True, we must be wary of the dangers of "asymmetric warfare". This is the term that we use for the current world situation. America is often described as the world's only super power. In truth, the U.S. is a super-duper power. The disparity between the military might of the U.S. and its strongest potential enemies, China or Russia, is huge. Yet we tremble with fear at the potential damage from a relative gnat like North Korea or Iran.

However, this is an imperfect analogy of our spiritual warfare. In some sense, we are better off on the spiritual front. Our potential national military enemies are not under our control. They don't have to listen to George Bush. In the bigger picture God, is in absolute sovereign control, even over the actions of Satan. God does not "battle" Satan. Satan operates only within the confines of God's permissive will. Satan cannot snatch us away, and believers cannot be demon possessed. We cannot at the same time be under the sovereign control of Satan (or more likely his minion) while indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

²⁸And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. ²⁹My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. ³⁰I and My Father are one." (John 10:28-30)

Probably none of us has ever been assaulted by Satan himself. He is a creature. He can only be in one place at a time. I suspect that none of us ever show up on his radar.

We can still say we are under attack by Satan, in the same sense that Iraqis will claim, correctly, to have been attacked by George Bush. We know that George Bush did not take up arms himself. Instead he operated as commander-in-chief. Satan is commander-in-chief of his army of fallen angels.

5) Misunderstanding Satan's Intentions and Methods

The most popular image of Satan's intention is that he is in a struggle with God for our souls. There is little if anything in scripture to support such a notion. There is no battle raging for men's souls. Such an idea is wrong on many fronts. For one thing, if Satan is dueling God, a tug of war for our souls as it were, it makes him an enemy of comparable power. We already know that is far from the truth. Satan is powerful compared to us, but worse than a 98 pound weakling compared to God. The other problem is with God's perfect justice. If we are lost because Satan snatched us, then we are lost for something that is not our fault. God doesn't send people to eternal damnation because of something that isn't their fault. We stand condemned on our own account, as reprobate sinners.

In my opinion, Satan doesn't care about our souls, and has no use for them.

What Satan wants, what he always wants, is to rob God of the one commodity that God wants, the very reason that He made us. Satan wants to diminish God's glory.

The compelling evidence that Satan is interested in robbing God's glory and not in stealing our immortal soul comes from the book of Job, specifically the two conversations between Satan and God. Let's look at the first one:

⁶ One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD , and Satan also came with them. ⁷ The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD , "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." ⁸ Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." ⁹ "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. ¹⁰ "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. ¹¹ But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." (Job 1:6-11)

Notice again that Satan needs permission to act. He is not an autonomous evil. Note further that no interest is expressed in Job's soul. Nothing is mentioned that suggests Job's soul hangs in the balance. No challenge is made that Job will worship Satan and be lost forever. Instead, Satan makes the following threat: he (Job) will surely curse you to your face.

Cursing is the opposite of worship. Worship is the chief way we glorify God; the two are virtually synonymous. Satan is saying: remove your protection from Job and I guarantee your glory will be diminished. Glory is the one commodity that God desires for Himself. It is why we were created. It is the only "angle" of attack for Satan.

• Satan the Accuser

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. (Rev. 12:10)

Satan is also called the accuser. He accused Job of hypocrisy. In that case, he made a false accusation against Job. Usually, however, Satan does not make false accusations. He doesn't need to. He (or his minion) uses our own sin against us. We can almost hear him: You filthy liar, God could not possibly love you or forgive you. He has taken you back so many times, and every time you failed anew. You are worthless. He seeks to use our guilt to draw us away from God. Maybe stop going to church. No worship, no glory—and Satan achieves a temporary victory.

• Satan the Crafty One

As an angel, Satan is also metamorphic. He can change his appearance. His standard tact seems not to appear fearsome but rather to appear beautiful and good.

¹⁴And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. ¹⁵It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. (2 Cor. 11:14-15)

Satan is described as crafty (or cunning) when we first encounter him in Genesis 3. Let's examine this a bit. Notice the first question that Satan asks:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Gen 3:1)

Of course, Satan knew quite well that God did not say 'You must not eat from any tree'. Quite the contrary, as Eve correctly responds:

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' " (Gen 3:2)

Still, we see Satan's guile. It is similar to 20th century existentialism, a tenet of which is: unless man is totally and absolutely free, autonomous if you were, he is not free at all. Adam and Even had such a minor restriction placed upon them: a single tree. But Satan's question was designed not to coerce Eve into eating from the forbidden tree but to get her wheels spinning: well if I can't eat from that one tree, pretty soon I may find the God declares other trees forbidden. If I am not totally free, I am not free at all.

Satan follows this philosophical nudge with two lies: you will surely not die and if you eat you will be like God. In the first case he uses a lie to call God a liar and in the second case he projects his own sin of pride onto Eve.

An interesting question: in what sense did Adam and Eve die when they ate the fruit?

• Satan the Tempter

Satan's most direct attack is to tempt us. Again, there is no scripture that says Satan can coerce us into doing something, and if he did then we would not be morally responsible. He merely provides the proverbial rope; we do the rest.

The two most famous stories of temptation in the bible could hardly be in sharper contrast. In the middle of a lush and beautiful garden, with all their needs provided, it took Satan about ten seconds to tempt Adam and Eve successfully. Just three sentences—one subtle question and two quick lies, and mankind's fate was sealed.

On the other hand, we have Christ's 40 days in the Judean desert, one of the most desolate and barren places on earth. His human body must have been famished as well as ravaged by the harsh environment. Yet He resisted Satan and his seductive offers. His method of resistance was to use scripture—a lesson we should pay attention to.

It is worth looking at the Lord's prayer. Contrary to how it is often said, the best translation is:

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (Matt. 6:13)

We are praying not for deliverance from some impersonal "evil", but to be free of the temptation placed before us by Satan and his host.

• Satan the Mighty

One image we have of Satan is that of a roaring lion.

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Pet. 5:8)

Christ is also depicted as a lion, the lion of Judah:

Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals." (Rev. 5:5)

The lion symbolizes power—Christ the lion, Satan the anti-lion. Again, the relative strength is all one-sided; Satan is no match for Christ. At the same time, on our own we are putty in the hands of Satan.

Summary

They main point to remember is even Satan is under God's sovereign control. He has been given some power to rule over the world. The battle is not for our souls, but for God's glory. Satan can diminish it by drawing us (temporarily) away from worship. We also are quite capable of doing this own our own, just from our fallen nature.