Did anyone catch last Saturday’s Herald an article ‘When extinction becomes a heresy’? It was an edited extract from an essay titled ‘Empathy for the enemy’, which, as I’ll soon explain, is manifestly ironic.
The article was jam-packed with the usual maudlin and irrational animal “rights” rhetoric that is endlessly promoted nowadays in mainstream media. More outrageous was its attempt to compare the necessary elimination of rabbits and foxes from Australia with the barbarism of Auschwitz. This elevation of animal rights, I may add, is entirely consistent with Nazi practices and their obsession with all things green.
Notwithstanding this attempt to muddy the clear line of separation between man and animal, attention needs to be called to the only theoretical basis on which such a move can be reasonably postulated, that being the “truth” of evolution. In other words, all life has common ancestry, and this was clearly reiterated in the article.
As a related aside, the Evangelical Union of Sydney University recently had their perennial compromising science/religion lunchtime talk. One of the scientists on the panel of “experts”, when asked about evolution, gave it an unqualified thumbs up. I couldn’t help but notice the confused look on the atheist’s face who asked the question. Quite rightly she instantly realised the incommensurability and the procrustean explanation of a putative marriage between Christian theism and this materialistic worldview.
One last jibe at the essay’s author Clive Marks. Marks is blissfully and philosophically unaware that just because something is the case (i.e. rabbits suffer when exposed to Myxomatosis), that this is sufficient epistemic justification to derive moral condemnation concerning this fact (i.e. it’s morally reprehensible to expose rabbits to Myxomatosis because rabbits suffer). And certainly, on an evolutionary epistemic in which the fit win and the weak are removed, I can’t see how a reversal of nature’s norm is at all warranted.
Now to the real comment I wish to make.
What grabbed my attention was the article’s opening sentence: “Time and evolution have been detached creators”
This blog has endlessly pointed out that the heretics over in that other world of Sydney Anglicanism have robbed Christ of his glory and office by substituting another creator for Him. These wolves neither read the Bible properly nor listen to commonsense and advice and thus, in chasing after the world’s wisdom, they “are deluded by specious arguments…and fall prey to hollow and misleading philosophy.” Rather than wholeheartedly upholding Paul’s statement that “everything was created through him”, these rascals have deceived others that the gods of time and evolution can act as a surrogate for Christ. Not content with their own evil thoughts, they pour scorn on and try to silence any who oppose their ideas.
That atheists openly worship time and evolution as the “gods” of materialism only makes the SADs enlisting of these very same “gods” inexcusable.
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Thanks John. I caught the article in the Herald too and thought the same as you.
The question of 'time' is an interesting one, and the disjunct produced between God's creating and its eventuating in theistic evolution is strongly linked, in my mind to the embarrasement at the physical in gnosticism that results in the 'demiurge'. For SADists, I think that the simple physical attribute of 'time' has become a demiurge that separates God from creation. This is entirely contrary to the Bible, which, at every turn has the language of immediacy in relation to God and creation.
The immediacy strikes an important theological note, IMO, putting us in a close, not a distant relation to God and making the relationship intimate, not cool. If something stands between us and God in the genealogy of creation (to which Scripture is opposed, I might add), then we are not from God's hand and breath, but from something else, some sort of 'machine' that made us as a mere 'output' and not in an act of fellowship and love.
That's it, I think. Like their gnostic and deist mates, the SADs destroy the intimate link between us and our creator (and Lord).
Boys, Mark Driscoll is the flavour of the Diocese at present. An import secured at cost to lecture at various venues with a message of chastisement to the Diocese.
The response to his scourging with hyssop has been a polite "We'll have to consider carefully what has been said" or words to that effect.
Why was it necessary to go to that expense. This is the site that the Diocese needed to go to for a reality check. We are the go-to people for the answers the Diocese needs to hear. In fact we have been saying it for over twelve months. The Diocese is puffed up in its own arrogance and missing the mark in reaching the lost. It has a conga-line of desperates following each other through the threads of the Anglican Forum commenting on this and that without contributing anything worthwhile to the extension of the Kingdom. It is a sorry dance through the shadows of emptiness.
But then, if you throw off the truth of the Living God for the idolatry of evolution and time then what else is there for you to find value in?
Neil
These SADists are clueless about how Darwinism is a universal acid (Dennett).
You're right about Nazi obsession with greenie religion. A CMI article earlier this year, Going ape about human rights: Are monkeys people, too? (by Lita Cosner) pointed out how the evolution-based Nazis were right into animal rights:
“Indeed, many leaders in Nazi Germany were dedicated animal rights activists as well. The following quote sounds like it could come from [Peter] Singer or [Ingrid] Newkirk [leader of PETA]: ‘How can you find pleasure in shooting from behind cover at poor creatures browsing on the edge of a wood, innocent, defenseless, and unsuspecting? It’s really pure murder.’ In reality, it came from Heinrich Himmler. Hermann Göring, in the same vein, prohibited ‘the unbearable torture and suffering in animal experiments,’ and intimidated ‘those who still think they can treat animals as inanimate property’ with threats of internment in concentration camps.
“Closer to our day, PETA has compared eating chickens with participating in the Nazi Holocaust ...”
In reading Isaiah, I came across the following, in chapter 48:
v. 3
I declared the former things long ago
And they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them
Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.
v. 13"Surely My hand founded the earth,
And My right hand spread out the heavens;
When I call to them, they stand together.
I don't know if 'the former things long ago' could extend to creation, as the passage appears more to be referring to perhaps salvation from Egypt, and the events surrounding that. However, as the previous verse fulminates against Israel's falling to sorcery and astrology (47:12, 13) and v. 13 is clearly about creation, it may be that God does remind Israel of his creation, being as they have involved themselves not only in a world of belief that cuts across their covenant, but, given the roots of that covenant in creation, also in a world that is ficticously alien to that of the Genesis creation account: a world of spells and magic, of the unknowable occult where mysteries abound, and nothing is clear or direct (compare Numbers 12:8, for example: With him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?" ).
As opposed to this, the world God made, and made suddenly (by speaking and it happened), is open to us, is not full of mysteries to be placated by spells, and is not under the thrall of astrology.
So may be here we have a fairly clear reference ( perhaps along with, say Jeremiah 51:15: It is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding He stretched out the heavens.) to God's creation being open, direct and rapid, 'suddenly' which is consistent with the language in Psalms, for instance (I think of Ps. 33:6).
So not only are atheists and "Darwinists" Nazi sympathisers... now you're saying animal rights activists are Nazi's as well?
Can I ask: do you think it's okay to, say, burn a pig to death with a blow torch? Or flay the skin off of a live kitten? If I were to object to these practices would I be a Nazi too?
I would appreciate it by the way if you made a note of Hitler's use of religion (especially Catholicism and his endorsement from the Pope at the time) when discussing his anti-Semitism.
Lastly, it's interesting (as always) to see your aversion to the notion of time. If your God loves you, what difference does it make if there is a gap in time between the creation of the universe and the arrival of humans? Does your wife love you any less because she met you when you were 20 instead of when you were born?
As opposed to this, the world God made, and made suddenly (by speaking and it happened), is open to us, is not full of mysteries to be placated by spells, and is not under the thrall of astrology.
I agree that the world is open. I agree that it's not to be placated by spells and I wholeheartedly agree that astrology has nothing to do with anything. I don't agree that it's not full of mysteries though.
Healy, I read Ktisophilos to be saying that PETA and the Nazis put animals on the same level (or perhaps higher in some cases) as humans. The two instances you cite are worse than beastly and would not be condoned by any decent person.
I note your question about time and whether it mattered if God allowed a long time from creation of the world to creation of man.
Psalm 139 of David indicates that God knew man, the subject of his love, even before the birth of man. 1 Peter 1:19-20 indicates that before the creation of the world, the object of God's love i.e. man, would require a Saviour. Such is the love of God for man that God went ahead with creation despite the anticipated rebellion of Man against God.
Now it seems to me that when you esteem someone or something above another then it is the history of man to desire relating with that someone or using that something more than entertaining that which you don't esteem as much.
Why then would God create a world which, as it is held by biblical scholars, was made fit for man to inhabit and then wait billions of years before creating man - the object of his love and great plan -to inhabit that world and relate to God.
Further, looking to the future what does God say through Paul the Apostle in 1 Cor 15:50-54? He makes it clear that in the end the dead will be raised in an instant. No evolutionary, long time process here - the invisible or scant remains becoming life in an instant.
Neil
Healy,
When you really do love someone you can't wait to be with them. You rush out to meet them and fret when they aren't with you by your side.
Leave your atheism aside for a moment and think as a Christian SHOULD. The Anglo heretics agree that God loves us but then have him wait for billions of years and only THEN create us, the object of his love. Even Bertrand Russell could understand how naff that sounded.
Healy, gutter atheistic sites can't seem to make up their collective minds whether Nazism was based on Catholicism or Lutheranism.
But in reality, Hitler's eugenics policy was invented by Darwin's cousin Francis Galton and promoted by Darwin's son Leonard. Hitler's anti-slavic racist policy and murder of 3 million Polish Christians is hardly compatible with Christianity. See also From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany by Richard Weikart.
Here is a chilling Nazi propaganda video, Victims of the Past (Opfer der Vergangenheit, 1937):
http://www.youtube.com/v/LiO_c5-6_Hw
‘Everything in the natural world that is weak for life will ineluctably [unavoidably] be destroyed. In the last few decades, mankind has sinned terribly against the law of natural selection. We haven’t just maintained life unworthy of life, we have even allowed it to multiply! The descendants of these sick people look like this!’
Read also the book The Myth of Hitler's Pope by Rabbi David Dalin. He documents how Pope Pius XII was always staunchly opposed to Nazism, hid hundreds of Jews in his personal summer house, encouraged Jew-saving operations across Europe, and was widely praised by Jewish leaders and Israeli prime ministers Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett. Indeed, he saved more Jews than Schindler. See this review and this video summary.
Why then would God create a world which, as it is held by biblical scholars, was made fit for man to inhabit and then wait billions of years before creating man - the object of his love and great plan -to inhabit that world and relate to God.
When you really do love someone you can't wait to be with them. You rush out to meet them and fret when they aren't with you by your side.
Isn't your God supposed to be eternal? If so, time doesn't really hold much meaning: he could afford to wait as long as he wants.
And, being God and able to create universes in an instant, by the same argument you use why would he create humans at the start of his "plan" and not just go straight to the resolution? Maybe part of the plan WAS to allow sentient species to arise naturally. It wouldn't matter much to a God: like I said, an eternal being can afford to wait as long as he or she wants.
What does Healy care anyway?
But one thing that distinguished God's creative acts was the speed. E.g. Jesus displayed His divinity by instantaneous turning water into wine, instead of over months. The faithful centurion likewise recognized Jesus' power to cure his sick servant instantly with just a word of command (Matt. 8:5–13). The centurion realized that even his own orders were obeyed immediately and without question. Therefore, he realized, how much more would the commands of the Lord of Creation be obeyed.
Likewise, God's creative acts during Creation Week were likewise instuted by God's commands, and were over by the time the day was closed, and able to be assessed as "very good".
I don't "care" I'm "interested".
Interested in what it matters to you if God showed his power by creating everything in 6 days or showed his power by starting the process and subtly guiding it over the course of 14billion years. If God showed his love by creating humans instantly compared with subtly pushing and prodding over the course of 4billion.
Just wondering why you think being created instantly out of dirt makes him love you more than if he created you as a result of billions of years of subtle tweaks. I would think a God with the power to make things instantly wouldn't value them as highly, seeing as if he breaks it he could just make another one.
What would you love more, a picture you took on a camera or a painting you painstakingly rendered over the course of a month?
Healy, you are right when you say God is eternal and he need not be concerned about time duration in doing things. However, I would add "so long as it suits his purposes."
He has made it clear in Scripture that he created an orderly environment for man and then made man to inhabit it.
I liken this to someone inviting someone they love to the house they have built and then ensuring everything is in order before the beloved guest arrives. It is a lack of esteem to invite the beloved guest to an untidy/disordered house. If we set the house in order how much more would God do it for man whom he loves.
Having put in place an ordered habitation for man, God then made man to inhabit the place. God could have been quicker than a period of six days but I find it wonderful that he chose to restrain himself to a period which was something of a sign to a six day working week by which man seems to benefit (Exodus 20:8-11).
The 'tweaking' you refer to as an evolutionary process is not compatible with love because of its components of suffering, death and frustrations. When Charles Darwin came to believe these components were instruments for the evolution of life he could no longer entertain any notion of the God of the Bible as being the Creator of life. He couldn't see any love in this.
I don't think your analogy of the photo and the painting fits the scenario of creation which we are discussing. You are seeing the production of the painting through the constraints of life as it is for man. It does take man some painstaking and elongated period of time to produce the work of quality. God has made it clear that he does not have to go through a painstaking and elongated process to produce something of quality. Consider the parts of the human body but consider also the wine created instantaneously by Jesus Christ from water and which was deemed by the Master of Ceremonies at the wedding in Cana to be high quality wine.
Neil
In the Gospel of Matthew we hear Jesus say: "So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows"; this does seem to suggest a hierarchy. However, it would make little sense if Jesus wasn't trying to suggest that even sparrows are valuable to God. He could have said: Broken crockery is broken crockery and you are more valuable to God than broken crockery. Not that I want to imagine the mind of God, I can think of nothing more blasphemous.
I liken this to someone inviting someone they love to the house they have built and then ensuring everything is in order before the beloved guest arrives. It is a lack of esteem to invite the beloved guest to an untidy/disordered house. If we set the house in order how much more would God do it for man whom he loves.
That analogy is a little different to what I was saying :)
As to your God has made it clear that he does not have to go through a painstaking and elongated process to produce something of quality.
There are unfortunately many man instances in the Old Testament of God using painFUL and elongated processes to have his way
Phil, thanks for your contribution.
Healy, yes, a good observation.
The Old Testament does describe what appear to me to be harsh judgments from God. We must remember, though, the context in which the judgments are delivered. They are all post-Fall - the Fall which was brought about by man discarding the warning from God and bringing death and suffering into the world. It is within this context that God acts in judgement upon acts committed against the order of creation.
Prior to the Fall, the order of creation was one of mutual grace relationships. Or, at least, that was God's intention. We see mutual grace relationships expressed within the Godhead ie Father, Son, Holy Spirit, each giving of themselves to the glory of the other and, in God's great plan of salvation, to the creation. So I think I am on safe ground in saying that was the intention of God for his creation. The Ten Commandments are an expression of the upholding of mutual grace relationships.
Yes, there are painful judgments of God in the O.T. and warnings of them in the N.T., but there is always, at the very least, a tinge of grace. The great act of grace was that of God in the Person of Jesus Christ, paying the price of a death he did not deserve, so that those who believe in him will have life and have it to the full. In the context of the post-Fall order of life, God the innocent submitted himself to be murdered by his own creation. There is a lot we look at and wonder why does it have to be so.
I trust that God is acting rightly. All will be vividly clear to me one day.
Neil
Wittgenstein’s proposition: ‘Where (or of what) one cannot speak, one must remain silent’ could be valuable in this argument. For example, when we (who do not know the mind of God) try and understand Him through our mortal senses in the our immediate universe, how are we to make sense of even the first line in the Bible?: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. From our linear understanding of our own lives and history, we can imagine a beginning, but God has no beginning. Prior to His ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and earth’ He existed outside of time and space. Being omnipotent we can rightly assume that He can do this. But it is hard for us to imagine, but He did. It is also hard for us to imagine (let alone construct) a four-sided triangle, but if God is all powerful maybe He can. It would be fine to have faith in God that He could will such thing, but it is beyond my imagination to understand such a thing, and this is simple geometry, not the making of the universe, and life, love, and faith.
Neil, I think you, we, have to be careful when we say things like: “God’s intention”. I have enough trouble cooking a soft-boiled egg just right for my and my wife’s breakfast, and it only takes about three minutes, yet we (and I include scientific-Darwinian-evolutionists here too) seem to think we can unravel the entire history of everything and how it began? I would applaud all our efforts if, and only if, we were not so obsessed in finding a ‘conclusion’ that we want to believe to be right so we can ‘order’ our lives and the lives of others (this includes animals).
So again: ‘Where (or of what) one cannot speak, one must remain silent’.
I would just like to add a thought to the original proposition of Healy.
The Lord God appears to have recorded an awful lot of intricate activity in the four or so thousand years of biblical history. If the Lord God has been so intensely active and desired for that activity to be known then it doesn't make much sense that the Lord God would have created the setting which was to be a key focus of His attention only to wait eons before commencing that activity.
Sam Drucker
Phil, I have some sympathy for what you say but when God says certain things that are clear then we can understand the mind of God on those things. Indeed, I think God expects us to grasp that an act on it.
I presume your comment arises from my saying that it was God's intention that we were to live in mutual grace relationships from the beginning.
I cannot help but observe the activity of the three Persons of the Godhead seeking the glory of the other. I cannot help but see the Lord Jesus Christ saying that mutual grace relationships are the order for life when asked to identify the greatest commandment (Matt. 22:34-40). Further, the Beatitudes are full with teaching on mutual grace relationships.
Neil
Neil, if someone, who had never tasted a lemon, asked: “What does a lemon taste like?” And I answered: “Sour”. And then they asked: “What does sour taste like?” The best I could answer is: “The opposite of sweet”. My answer is hardly a description of sour. The person needs to bite into a lemon, only then will they know sour – they will have all the evidence of sour they need. Prior to biting the lemon it would appear to be beyond their knowledge. God is more than a lemon, and it is rare that God says anything that is clear on His ultimate plan for the universe and all that it contains, how could He? It would be like teaching a jelly-fish how to spell; it is simply beyond its natural ability. Just as it is someone to imagine sour without having experienced sour. Just as it is beyond our natural ability to grasp God’s reasoning for us in his universe. We might as well ask God: Why a universe rather than nothing? Could we understand the alternative? I don’t think so.
But for those of us with faith don’t look for evidence, we naturally have doubt to test our faith, but it is the doubt that reinforces our faith. All we need to keep in account are the ‘sketchy’ (and I use this word in all goodness) writings and translations of the many who have assembled thoughts that approach goodness. Because, regardless of anything else: “ … the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23) and not even the most Bible reading, church attending, and preaching Christian will escape death, and “ … all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). ‘all’ seems pretty clear, but who knows? I don’t what to speak for the Almighty, I wouldn’t dare.
PS Sorry, that should read 'I don't want' not 'what'.
Phil, we are seeing things differently.
The inquirer asking you for the taste of a lemon is in a different position to a person being able to find out about the nature and intention of God for himself because God has communicated things of Himself in the biblical record, even in the creation (Rom.8:18-20). The taste of a lemon can only be understood by the person who takes of the lemon. The Apostle Paul makes it clear to the church in Rome that mankind can know something of God without taking of Him.
Further, the Lord Jesus Christ expressed disappointment that his disciples were not able to understand the will of God concerning what is clean and unclean (Mark 7:1-23).
I grant you there are many things about the nature and intention of God that we don't know but there are others that we can know and, some of which, we are expected to know. The latter is particularly so for those having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Finally, God has made it abundantly clear how He has and will deal with man's rebellion against Him and He has called on believers to make this known to the world.
Anyway, let's not get hung up on this because I'm not sure we are dealing with Healy's original proposition.
Neil
Healy said: "Maybe part of [God's]plan WAS to allow sentient species to arise naturally."
By 'naturally' I suppose you mean zillions and zillions and zillions etc etc of chance chemical accidents which by chance, over and over again, threw up not only the requisite optical purity (which is against "natural" law anyway!), but also somehow, again and again and again..."created" out of nothing the huge amounts of novel, complex biological information that life requires, all the time this "God" not actually doing anything but allowing chance to "do" everything.
Healy, not even the real God could accomplish that!
Phil said: "Not that I want to imagine the mind of God, I can think of nothing more blasphemous."
Phil, I remember debating at London's Speakers' Corner many Sundays ago. There were 500 Muslims surrounding me and I said that one big difference between our two religions is that through Christ Christians have access to God's mind. They labelled this blasphemous.
Now, Christ died for us so that we, with him, are able to call God, Abba. Paul also says that we now have the mind of Christ. In a relationship one grows in knowledge of the other person. I would say that it it actually blasphemous for a Christian to say that we DON'T know God's mind (though obviously not exhaustively!).
As God said through Isaiah, "Come now, let us reason together." That is, let my mind and yours engage. That's what fathers and sons do quite naturally!
Healy, where are you?
Neil
Or for that matter..where are you Phil?
John, I agree with the Muslims. We don't have access to the mind of God. We have the thought of many prophets, and those thoughts come to us in the form of words, and words are (as Hamlet says) 'words, words, words', words are nothing to reality, and naturally all this is nothing compared to the Almighty. How can you seriously think that YOU know the mind of God! Are you suggesteing that you, like God, are omniscient? It is anti-intellectual idas that give Christianity such a bad name - come on, have some faith.
... sorry John, that should read 'ideas' not 'idas'.
Phil,
1. Do you regard yourself as a Christian?
2. So, in terms of relationship to God, a Muslim and a Christian are on exactly the same ground??
Phil,
On whose authority do you say that Christians do not have access to the mind of God?
John,
I don't believe I regard myself as Christian as you regard yourself as a Christian.
Jews, Christians, Muslims, Socratic Philosophers, readers of Confucius, and Buddhists, all seem (to me) to be moving in the same direction: To know God's Will. But because we can't, we have many answers, and therefore, many different displays of what God wants - some very different from others. What I am suggesting, is that it would be better if we, sinners, realised that we are not without error in thought, belief, and judgement.
I have no authority to say that Christians do not know the mind of God, but if we are all equal there is no authority, but God being the ultimate authority, who am I, or any of my other sinning-human-equals, to say that they know Him better than others?
I said it before, positions like yours seem (and I do say 'seem') anti-intellectual to me. Christians have always 'known' the mind of God. This was why they persecuted homosexuals, native Africans, women, and wared and killed in the name of God. How dare they. How dare they think they knew that this was God's will.
Have faith that God as saved your soul, and leave it at that.
'As the hart panteth after the water brooks.' [Psalm 42]. If you've drunk your fill, that is, if you've found God, then your mind should be at peace. Let others find God for themselves, and those who have found God, stop pretending to know his thoughts and accept that you are equipped with larynx and a soul. Lisetn to your thoughts,a nd remeber they are YOUR thoughts.
Phil, thanks for the insight into the thinking that guides you to where you stand on the mind of God.
I, at least, but I suspect most others here, have seen disparity in the range of beliefs. I came to a mind that if God is the author of truth and communication then a multitude of conflicting beliefs, as represented by the world's religions, have not come from the one mind.
The need for me was to test the beliefs to ascertain which best fits the world as I see it and as history has recorded it.
This led me to believe the integrity of the Bible and accept that its stream of concordance from so many different contributors/authors over centuries had to be inspired by one who is "I AM".
I continually see the Bible holding up in all fields of science and literature.
Those who killed or inflicted hardships as alleged Christians were just not acting as the Lord Jesus Christ would have had them act (I exclude here acts of self defence). I just don't see their actions as being consistent with the revelation of Him as demonstrated in Person and in Scripture.
Scripture does make it clear there are things of the mind of God that we can know but not exhaustively now.
I suspect if you give equal credit to conflicting assertions of the mind of God you must devolve to a belief that you can't know the mind of God.
Neil
Phil,
What do you make of the following words from Paul? Do you think they have any truth and reality today or was he merely talking to a past group and thus his letter is of no relevance? The following is taken from 1 Corinthians 2:
"But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ."
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