Baddeley Award Citation part the first

This is the first in a multipart citation for the 2007 Baddeley award. It is long, unfortunately, Mr Baddeley is prolix, to say the least, but I've tried to make it fun as well.

The citation is in double brackets, usually in a new paragraph, bold if 'in line'. The other stuff is MB's work taken from his blog at the time of original posting.

Problems With Creation Science I: Absence of a Theology of Creation

My encounter with this anti-Sydney Diocese blog [[a mistake here: the blog is not anti-Sydney Anglican Diocese, but anti the heresies promulgated, perhaps unwittingly, but sometimes very wittingly, by the Diocese care of its educational arm and prominent ministers (we eschew the worldy titles the diocese uses)]] has strengthened my concerns about Creation Science [[which, oddly, the blog is not about]]. As I’ve indicated, I don’t have a problem with the idea of a literal six day creation in the abstract [[the Bible is not 'in the abstract' but the 'historical']]. What does concern me is that, almost without exception in my experience, people who are into creation science seem to be disinterested in theology [[I think he means 'uninterested']], and in understanding the world theologically.

I have lost count of the number of videos, magazine articles, internet articles, and teaching sessions I’ve been part of that have gone over Genesis 1, the Flood, and Behemoth from Job 40. And it is always the same. These passages are mined [[is this an intentional perjorative?]] to show:
1. That the world is 8 000 years old [[where did this number come from? Ussher's date puts it at about 6000 years old.]]
2. That if we had been there, we would have seen that Genesis 1 gives us a journalistic [[wrong word, noting the nonsense that some journalists write! I think we'd prefer to say that Genesis 1 gives us a report of the events of creation]] account of how creation came about [[I think that's in there; the method appears to be "God said . . it happened", refer also to Hebrews 11:3]]. That is, it is pretty much what we would have seen with our own eyes [[I don't know that this is either implied by the account or possible. On some 'creationist' views, the period of rapid time-space inflation that may have occured would not be amenable to observation, and we certainly could not see (with our post-fall limitations) the making of stars, etc. I think this remark by MB is just silly.]]
3. That there was a flood that covered the world with water, and so contemporary geological theories are fatally flawed. [[actually, no; it is contemporary geological time-scales that are!, conflation doesn't help your case MB, 'creationists' have no problem with most of contemporary geology, only its timing.]]
4. That there were dinosaurs still in existence at the time of Job. [[I wonder where *did* all those dragon stories come from?]]

These might be true or not, but none of them really touch on the core concerns of the Bible [[no, these are precisely the concerns of the Bible: that we have true knowledge about our world, and our relationship with God, our 'reality-standing' if you like; if they are not true, the Bible does not give us information to allow us to understand our selves, our position, and our origin and therefore, connection with God; it is also hubristic to state the core concern of the Bible if it becomes less that the full spectrum of the Bible: it is all its core concern; I refer to Jesus' 'jot and tittle' quote; otherwise, you are taking away from scripture!]]. These are the kind of questions that are of interest primarily to post-enlightenment empiricism. They are scientific questions about the world. [[Unfortunately, some of an academic turn of mind see reality only in terms of a mosaic of disciplines; but the real world is not so; it is a continuous reality, 'ontologically isotropic', if you like. The questions are not 'scientific' questions: that conceptualisation is itself one that can only be made with a post-enlightenment mindset; rather, the world of the Bible is that all matters of God's revelation and action are germane. It is a mistake to apply a modern category to parts of scripture and suppose that this limits the application of the scripture in some way: Paul tells us that all scripture is there for teaching, it is not the 'story artform' that Laurie Anderson, for instance, claims it is (her CD "The Ugly One with the Jewels") etc.]]

What is always passed over (and so one presumes [[ah, no, what is important is that Christian theology is about what really happened, not mere talk]] that it is considered uninteresting or unimportant) is the theological interpretation of the world. Some examples include:

The way in which creation comes about in the first three days by creating order through making divisions—light versus day, heaven versus earth, land versus sea. And then the second set of three days seems to return to these basic structures and fill them: sun, moon on day four; birds and sea creatures on day five, land creatures and humanity on day six. This suggests a basic understanding of creation as being structured through binary opposition and then filled. Thus, in Genesis 1 we get a move from the original state: formless (no structure) and void (empty) and finish with a structured universe in which entities exist. When one sees that making a separation between two things is fundamental to creation, then, for example, the holiness laws, with their separation into holy and profane, clean and unclean, make far more sense.

[[Now, the odd thing here is this. Firstly, it is a little like the tail wagging the dog: creation is set out so that the holiness laws work? Too much reading Augustine, IMO. Does this mean that the creation account is a mere artifice, a piece of fiction to pave the way for the holiness laws that won't stand on their own account? Secondly, and I think I'll keep coming back to this; none of these observations apply if creation did not occur as stated.

I think MB has fallen here into a pagan way of thinking (not trying to play the man here, btw) and doesn't follow the way of the Bible. That is, no words are empty, or without real reference; creation is not a side show, but is the very start of, and circumscribes the parameters of, our relationship with God. To think that creation could have really occured in fashion 'a', but is revealled as happening in fashion 'b' makes nonsense of the concept of revelation, and questions the validity of any interpretational approach: indeed, it seems more like the Eastern approach to matters of religion, perhaps its the Zen of Biblical Interpretation!

But, that aside, I note MB's nice slide over to the framework hypothesis, flawed as it is.

Some links on this, without necessarily endorsing all of the material:

Reference 1
Reference 2
Reference 3
Reference 4
Reference 5

There is also a lenghty article by Dr. Pipa which is no longer on the net, but a chapter in the book (I think): “Reading Genesis 1:1–2:3 as an Act of Communication: Discourse Analysis and Literal Interpretation,” in Did God Create in Six Days? ed. Joseph A. Pipa, Jr. and David W. Hall [Taylors, SC: Southern Presbyterian Press, 1999]

I think Mr B misses the point, though, of the 'creation science' movement, as he puts it. I must also clarifiy here, that this blog is not a 'creation science' blog, but a biblical one. We want to unpick the heresy, not open a lab.

The 'concern' with the CS movement as expressed, is like quibbling that the dentist isn't interested in your tinea: refer to the mission of the CS movement.

The core of it is twofold. 1. to expose the presumptive materialism that underpins and constrains dogmatic evolutionism, and 2. to show that theology has realist underpinnings, not idealist.

If we surrender to pagan idealism, othodox theology will collapse and MB's brief recital below will become mere vain postulating, without content. The point of the movement, and the talks he has attended (clearly he's not found any theological ones; more his limitation than that of the movement, IMO) is to challenge materialist orthodoxy that says the Bible is fictional, that it touches on the real world history erroneously and it is necessary (practically) rather than contingent, and being necessary is 'natural' and not supernatural in origin.

It also, in doing this, must attack the approach to the study of the creation that starts with the assumption that there is no God, or if there is, there is no practical consequence to his existence. All this is necessary before there is a theology of creation that is worth our attention, because Christian theology is the study of God in what he has done (as reported) and said, not the study of stories about God or what God has not done. If the Bible's contact with the real world is false at every turn, particularly on the question of origins, then no theology is possible; which I suppose is why there is scant regard for a theology of creation in the Sydney Diocese that (table thus turned)!]]

What is also passed over is the way in which creation exists to serve humanity [[again, but only if the account is factual, and only if the real fall can play a part in our real history and 'destiny'; otherwise, we have, among other things, the evolutionary picture, where 'creation' does not serve humanity, but is troublesome]]: Genesis 1:14-18 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

Here the existence of the sun and the moon are explained simply as to give light to the world and to regulate day and night. They, along with the stars exist simply to regulate seasons, days and years. They are the celestial equivalent of a wrist watch.

That’s hardly a scientific answer. What about stars we never see on earth without the aid of, very, very powerful telescopes? What about the sun’s role in keeping the solar system stuck together, and providing energy for the other planets? What about the other planets in the solar system, or asteroids? What about the fact that the stars are actually other suns?

But it is a powerful theological answer. Humanity regularly falls into worshipping the sun, the moon, and the stars or awarding them immense power over our lives, as astrology indicates. Here Genesis 1 shows us that they are not lords over the earth. They are mere servants. Night lights for human beings. They exist for our sake.

[[Partly an exercise in missing the point, partly an exhibition of the shell game (which shell is the die under?). The mistake a lot of neo-orthodox critics of the bibilical creation movement make is to assume that Genesis 1, etc. is taken as a 'scientific' treatise. This could not be further from the truth. It is an historical record: it tells us what happened in terms that are of significance and sensible to us; it also provides the intellectual context for the mandate given in Gen 1:28a; to the extent that it gives information about the creation, it is arguably, and I suggest obviously, from an 'earth gravitational frame of reference' position.
To the extent that it touches on events, it relates them truthfully, if not exhaustively. It's like looking at historical records to establish that the dioxin at the Rhodes redevelopment site in Sydney comes from a now demolished chemical plant. The formulae for dioxin is not given, but the fact of its presence is explained.
MB again in this complaint makes the academic mistake of thinking that the Bible can have theological content independently of 'reality' content. This is the 'story-art' mistake; and a common one.]]

And this is the clear teaching of the NT:
1 Timothy 6:17 Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.

1 Timothy 4:3-5 …men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

Everything made by God is good, and so nothing is inherently off limits. The fact that this world has been filled with good things (as Genesis 1 painstakingly shows with it’s enunciation of the six day process of setting the universe up) tells us something about God, that God ‘richly supplies us with all things’. That is, that God is superabundantly generous to the human race.

It also tells us the stance we are to have towards the world. God has given us all things for us ‘to enjoy’. Christianity is pro-aesthetic. Things in the world are good and so should be enjoyed for their own sake. Christianity is anti-ascetic: advocating the abstaining from foods and forbidding marriage (and I would suggest that these are indicative examples, not intended to exhaust the kinds of things people who teach demonic doctrines (from 1 Tim 4:1-2) might say) is criticised in some of the harshest language Paul ever uses.

The purpose God had for creating things was so that those of us who believe and know the truth (i.e. are Christians) would gratefully share in them, sanctifying them by our reception of the word of God (believing the gospel) and prayer. That is, we are to enjoy things, and to enjoy things in a non-secular way. We are to enjoy the world as a gift from God, and so be grateful to God for it, and pray to use things for the purposes God gave them for. What we don’t do is find our security, or place our hope in the abundance of good things we have. We recognise God alone as the giver of life, and the giver of all good things.

Hence, the call on Christians to deny themselves, to pursue Christ wholeheartedly, to live a life of sacrificial love for others, needs to be understood against this backdrop. Christians are to forego enjoying the things of this world. But that is because of the demands of faith and love in the last days—the days when the ascended Christ rules over this rebellious world and all his enemies are being put under his feet. It is forgoing the good out of love, it is not asceticism for asceticism’s sake. Because everything is given for our good, we are free to use or not use them, depending on the demands of the circumstances in the context of love.

For me, this has transformed the way I relate to creation and tackle issues from alcohol, to culture and art, to work, and love of money. And I haven’t even begun to touch on the strong NT teaching about the relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and creation!

And here’s the problem. It was only after I stopped reading Creation Science stuff on the topic and started reading material that they consider to have fatally compromised on the doctrine of creation, that my eyes were opened to begin to grasp this much bigger vista of a theological approach to the world.

Even if Genesis 1 is intended to be taken literally, I am very grateful that God has allowed me to grasp this way of seeing the world as existing as his good gift to his people, to be enjoyed with gratitude. I consider myself to have gained by losing the one to gain the other. Grasping this world as God’s good gift changes everything. It gives purpose and meaning, not just to human beings, but to all things.

[[All well and good, but he's got the corner if it. Augustine thought that the creation account was to let the Sabbath law make sense; Baddeley things its to tell us that the creation is there for our pleasure. It is, of course, but that's hardly the point of the Creation account. Jesus did not use it in that way.

Furthermore, as I know the creation is from God's loving hand and that reality is finally personal, not material, I am confident that God's relationship to it and us is concrete and open, not occult and mysterious, and certainly not through the 'demiurge' of time and 'chance'.]]

Here ends the first part of the award citation.