Declension in the Church has never gone unnoticed and without rebuke. This was just as much true when Darwinism commenced its onslaught on the public and Church scene in the Nineteenth Century. The following is an extract of a sermon preached at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, England, on 9 December 1860 by John Bergon, just thirteen months after the initial print of "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" by Charles Darwin.
"Learn to put away from your souls that vile indifferentism which is becoming the curse of this shallow and unlearned age. Be as forgiving as you please of indignities offered to yourselves; but do not be ashamed to be very jealous for the honour of the Lord of Hosts; and to resent any dishonour offered to Him, with a fiery indignation utterly unlike anything you could possibly feel for a personal wrong. Attend ever so little to the circumstance, and you will perceive that every form of fashionable impiety is one and the same vile thing in the essence of it: still Antichrist, disguise it how you will. We were reminded last Sunday that the sensualist, by following the gratification of his own unholy desires, in bold defiance of God's known Law, is in reality setting himself up in the place of God, and becoming a God unto himself. The same is true of the Idolatry of Human Reason; and of Physical Science: as well as of that misinformed Moral Sense which finds in the Atonement of our Lord nothing but a stone of stumbling and a snare. It is true of Popish error also; for what else is this but a setting up of the Human above the Divine - [Tradition, the worship of the Blessed Virgin, the casuistry of the Confessional, and the like] - and so, once more substituting the creature for the Creator ?-What again is the fashionable intellectual sin of the day, but the self-same detestable offence, under quite a different disguise ? The idea of Law - [that old idea which is declared to be only now emerging into supremacy in Science] - takes the hideous shape of rebellion against its Maker; and pronounces,' now Miracles, now Prophecy, now Inspiration itself, to be a thing impossible; or is content to insinuate that the disclosures of Revelation are at least untrue. What is this, I say, but another form of the self-same iniquity - a setting up of the creature before the Creator who is blessed for evermore; a substitution of some created thing in the place of God!
The true antidote to all such forms of impiety, believe me, is not controversy of any sort; but the childlike study of the Bible, each one for himself - not without prayer. Humble must we be, as well as assiduous; for the powers of the mind as well as the affections of the heart should be prostrated before the Bible, or a man will derive little profit from his study of it. Humble, I repeat, for mysteries (remember), are revealed unto the meek; and the fear of the Lord is the begiiming of Wisdom; and he that would understand more than the Ancients must keep God's precepts; and it is the commandments of the Lord which give light unto the eyes. The dutiful student of the Bible is permitted to see the mist melt away from many a speculative difficulty; and is many a time reminded of that saying of his Lord, 'Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God ?' . . . The humble and attentive reader of the Bible becomes impressed at last with a sense of its Divinity, analogous I suppose to the conviction of Eleven of the Apostles that the Man they walked with was none other than the Son of God."
Theistic Evolutionists neither know the Scriptures or the power of God.
"Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel - all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him." (1 Kings 19:18)
Sam Drucker
Showing posts with label Darwin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darwin. Show all posts
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
War on God and the Bible
James Kidwell Popham was born in Lancaster, England in 1847 and died in 1937. He was Editor of the "Gospel Standard" from 1905 till 1935. For some years he was active with the Trinitarian Bible Society. He preached at Galeed Chapel more than 50 years. Speaking of his conversion he said "On a never to be forgotten day as I was walking along a road the word, 'Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God', was borne in upon my heart with an amazing power. The view of divine holiness filled me with alarm. I saw the uncleanness of my heart; then His divine justice flashed into my conscience and I saw my sins."
James Popham is a hero of faith. Like Noah he was a Preacher of Righteousness. Noah experienced a world prior to its destruction, lived through its destruction and experienced a new world which we now inhabit. James Popham lived prior to Darwinism, experienced the intrusion of Darwinism into Science and later infiltration of Darwinism into Christianity. Darwinism is destructive to Christian faith.
Late in his ministry, James Popham was horrified to hear the Bishop of Birmingham preach to a young audience in Westminister Abbey (the burial place of Charles Darwin) a sermon which was the fruit of receiving Darwinism into Christianity. James Popham made certain the young audience would not be left without correction. He preached a sermon on John 8:24 and gave it the title "War on God and the Bible." It was a lengthy sermon and space prevents me repeating it all here. An extract is provided and I just make comment that James Popham was in no doubt that diminution of the integrity of Genesis has its consequence for knowledge and trust in Jesus Christ. I hand over now to James Popham:
"I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins" (John 8:24).
How the world came into existence, whether by the immediate creating word of God, "Let there be", or by what is called evolution — with this we are brought face to face. How man came to exist, whether according to Genesis, And God said, "Let Us make man"; or whether there has been a development, a growth covering millions of years, so that from a bit of jelly (protoplasm) we have risen and risen and developed and come to be what we are today — is a question that is openly propounded, and I feel it behoves every minister called by grace and sent to preach, to set the trumpet to his mouth and blow an alarm with regard to these things.
"Science, falsely so-called", as the Apostle Paul speaks, is now very loud in its utterances and has become most daring in its opposition to God. It starts of course with cutting away from us the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. That inspiration is denied, and when a man denies the inspiration of this Book he is at once adrift and where he will go, how he will end, rests with God. The state today of this nation and of the whole world is terrible, and no wonder that the name of God no longer inspires reverence; no wonder that the inspired writers are regarded as ignorant men and as writing accordingly, and that Jesus Himself is accused of being a Jew speaking under the influence of Jewish prejudices. For there being no inspiration there can be no proper regard for the Bible and no belief attaching to the writings. And for you, my dear friends, especially for you young people, I have a strong feeling of sympathy. What God is to do with this nation is not for me to say, but we have this before us:" Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" He has given us in this our beloved nation the greatest of blessings — the gift of the Reformation founded on His holy Word. He gave a race of ministers mighty in the Scriptures. But the Reformation is now forgotten or derided, and the Reformers and Puritans, mighty in the Scriptures, have passed away, and we are in an exceedingly low condition.
Now as I see these things, there is a war being made on God and His inspired Word. Men in high places, religious teachers, are not afraid to speak of Him as if He were one of themselves, and of His Word as in parts unhistorical, contrary to fact, and therefore not to be relied on. Against this unbelieving attitude I speak to you, however feebly, and I take up the following positions:
1. First, I start with this, that this Bible is inspired, that it contains what the apostle speaks of to Timothy — "all Scripture", and that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God". What is signified by inspiration is stated thus by Scripture itself: "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. 1:21). That is, the penmen of this Book were so instructed by the Holy Ghost as to express the very words of God; not to write in their own words the thoughts suggested to them, but to write the words given them (2 Sam. 23:2; Acts 1:16). And truly if they were, as the anti-Scripturist says, "ignorant men", how necessary was it that they should have the very words given them to write and not be left to express thoughts in their own language! Who could depend on the Bible if it were but a transcription of thoughts, and the words left to the choice of the writers? Here we stand this morning: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine" — may we never despise doctrine; "for reproof — God grant we may never turn our ears from reproof; "for correction, for instruction in righteousness" — how a man should live and how a sinner should be made righteous; "that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim.
3:16).
2. My second position is, that the infinite God created heaven and earth and all that therein is, and the sea and all that is therein; that He rules in heaven and earth; that there is nothing hid from His gaze, nothing free from His control, nothing moving of itself absolutely; that God is "God only wise", the "I AM THAT I AM".
3. My third position is, that this God did for about thirty-three years walk on the earth in our own nature; that the Man Jesus is this God and that He is now in heaven in that same nature, even our own nature. And this God speaks in our text and says to His enemies : "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins".
Now we are brought face to face with two facts, namely, God speaks, and there are men who speak against Him and against His Word. You cannot open your newspaper today without seeing that His name, His word, His work, His glory are trampled under foot; and you, with myself, must more or less perceive that there is an imminent danger to us if we are left at all to receive the things which are taught by them of the Scriptures.
Between us, as we hope, believers in the Word and in the Being of God, and the scientist preaching his "science falsely so-called ", there is a great gulf. He cuts this Book away as to its inspiration; we believe it to be inspired. He derides creation work; we believe in it. He says we men have always ascended and are ascending. We say we descended in the Fall terribly; that man was made by the immediate operation of God in the image of God, his body formed out of the dust and his soul breathed into that body; so he be-came an immortal person, "a living soul". Sin has destroyed the life of the soul, but not the immortality of its being; and the life of the body is destroyed but for a time, for the day is coming when God will raise the bodies of both the righteous and the wicked. I say, there is a great gulf between us and those who deny the inspiration of Scripture and its testimony.
Now this Man who walked on the earth a poor Man, a broken-hearted Man, but a Teacher, an anointed Preacher of righteousness (Isa. 61:1), having the law of God in His heart (Psalm. 40:8) which He came to obey and fulfil — this Man is the only begotten Son of God, and He is the Word. You will find the same Person is spoken of as the Creator. In the first chapter of Genesis you read: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". In his Gospel the Apostle John says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." In the Hebrews the apostle says: "God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds". And of the same Person it is said: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth". And again: "No man hath seen God at any time" — that is just what the Lord said to Moses, "No man can see Me and live" — "the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him". His oneness with the Father, and therefore His eternity, are expressed in this Gospel by the Lord Jesus Himself. When answering Philip's request, "Show us the Father", He said: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. We are so one, one in nature, only distinguished in Person; so one that you cannot see Me without seeing the Father." The question of apprehending and seeing them both is another question which belongs to experience, but the fact, the truth, is that you cannot see Jesus Christ without seeing His eternal Father. And the Spirit is in them both and proceeds from them both.
James Popham proceeded to propound the saving work of Jesus Christ and the blessing of the Trinity being present in all who receive Him. These things are not yet jettisoned by Evangelicals so, for the sake of space and that they are not disputed, I have excluded them from this blog. Popham moves to the end of his sermon:
"If ye believe not that I am He" in these particulars, "ye shall die in your sins." Then this follows — that when a man, when a sinner does believe that Jesus is the I AM, that He is what the Scriptures declare Him to be, that He did what the Scriptures say He did, that He is where the Scriptures say He is, and is doing what the Scriptures say He is doing, he shall be saved, he shall not die in his sins. The sinner that by precious faith — faith which stands in the power of God, fixes here, stands here. casts himself down here before the God-Man Jesus Christ, he shall be saved, he shall not die in his sins.
So far I have set before you, as God I hope has helped me, fundamentals gathered up into one fundamental. We are face to face today with the most appalling infidelity, but let all the many that stand on the side of that terrible word uttered by a bishop in Westminster Abbey, "If there be a God" — let them approve of evolution and the destruction of theology, we have this BOOK, and we believe some have the Holy Ghost who spoke by holy men of old. We have His word for our teacher and our guide. Stand here, dear friends. Young people, you have much to meet with, much to contend against, if you fear God; but Stand fast by this, and remember one thing if you can—that when the Lord Jesus was tempted of the devil He said, "It is written, it is written". Say that also if and when you are tempted. If a subtle argument is brought to you, reply "It is written". This Book is written, these instructions are written. This Jesus is given, God sent Him. He freely came, He lovingly came. He freely, lovingly died; He rose again. He is in heaven. "It is written." That, if you are enabled to hold it, will keep you. The word of Jesus' patience will keep you, and you will keep it; and in the end this will be your blessed happy lot: "Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world".
Now I have delivered what was in my mind. Last Monday morning when I saw the terrible thing that the Bishop of Birmingham said to boys in Westminster Abbey, 0 how I felt for those boys! I felt such indignation and sorrow in my soul that made me cry to God to arise and vindicate His name and honour. And my mind has been with you young people more or less all the week. I have felt for you, and I feel for you. It may be that as I am an old man, God may remove me before the terrible day that is coming; but depend on this — you will meet with much "opposition of science falsely so-called", and if you have faith you will need it. Christ said to His disciples, having taught them many things: "Let these sayings sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men". As if He should say: "When I am weak, when I am crucified, when I seem to have no power, then remember I have taught" you these things". God help us to believe and to remember. Amen
I can hear the Theistic Evolutionists of the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney saying "Amen, we are not on display here." Wrong! You are included and exposed in your nakedness. Satan does not always come with a "club" as he did with Job. As with our Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane he may come with a kiss. You may say that you hold to the inspiration of Scripture but what you ignore is that you have been seduced to embrace the world. In your inflamed ardour, an ardour excited by having a love additional to your stated love of the Word you engage in deceit and secrecy. With subtlety you twist the the intent of the Word so that you can accomodate your adulterous relation with the world. This is sin. This is unfaithfulness.
Sam Drucker
James Popham is a hero of faith. Like Noah he was a Preacher of Righteousness. Noah experienced a world prior to its destruction, lived through its destruction and experienced a new world which we now inhabit. James Popham lived prior to Darwinism, experienced the intrusion of Darwinism into Science and later infiltration of Darwinism into Christianity. Darwinism is destructive to Christian faith.
Late in his ministry, James Popham was horrified to hear the Bishop of Birmingham preach to a young audience in Westminister Abbey (the burial place of Charles Darwin) a sermon which was the fruit of receiving Darwinism into Christianity. James Popham made certain the young audience would not be left without correction. He preached a sermon on John 8:24 and gave it the title "War on God and the Bible." It was a lengthy sermon and space prevents me repeating it all here. An extract is provided and I just make comment that James Popham was in no doubt that diminution of the integrity of Genesis has its consequence for knowledge and trust in Jesus Christ. I hand over now to James Popham:
"I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins" (John 8:24).
How the world came into existence, whether by the immediate creating word of God, "Let there be", or by what is called evolution — with this we are brought face to face. How man came to exist, whether according to Genesis, And God said, "Let Us make man"; or whether there has been a development, a growth covering millions of years, so that from a bit of jelly (protoplasm) we have risen and risen and developed and come to be what we are today — is a question that is openly propounded, and I feel it behoves every minister called by grace and sent to preach, to set the trumpet to his mouth and blow an alarm with regard to these things.
"Science, falsely so-called", as the Apostle Paul speaks, is now very loud in its utterances and has become most daring in its opposition to God. It starts of course with cutting away from us the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. That inspiration is denied, and when a man denies the inspiration of this Book he is at once adrift and where he will go, how he will end, rests with God. The state today of this nation and of the whole world is terrible, and no wonder that the name of God no longer inspires reverence; no wonder that the inspired writers are regarded as ignorant men and as writing accordingly, and that Jesus Himself is accused of being a Jew speaking under the influence of Jewish prejudices. For there being no inspiration there can be no proper regard for the Bible and no belief attaching to the writings. And for you, my dear friends, especially for you young people, I have a strong feeling of sympathy. What God is to do with this nation is not for me to say, but we have this before us:" Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" He has given us in this our beloved nation the greatest of blessings — the gift of the Reformation founded on His holy Word. He gave a race of ministers mighty in the Scriptures. But the Reformation is now forgotten or derided, and the Reformers and Puritans, mighty in the Scriptures, have passed away, and we are in an exceedingly low condition.
Now as I see these things, there is a war being made on God and His inspired Word. Men in high places, religious teachers, are not afraid to speak of Him as if He were one of themselves, and of His Word as in parts unhistorical, contrary to fact, and therefore not to be relied on. Against this unbelieving attitude I speak to you, however feebly, and I take up the following positions:
1. First, I start with this, that this Bible is inspired, that it contains what the apostle speaks of to Timothy — "all Scripture", and that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God". What is signified by inspiration is stated thus by Scripture itself: "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. 1:21). That is, the penmen of this Book were so instructed by the Holy Ghost as to express the very words of God; not to write in their own words the thoughts suggested to them, but to write the words given them (2 Sam. 23:2; Acts 1:16). And truly if they were, as the anti-Scripturist says, "ignorant men", how necessary was it that they should have the very words given them to write and not be left to express thoughts in their own language! Who could depend on the Bible if it were but a transcription of thoughts, and the words left to the choice of the writers? Here we stand this morning: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine" — may we never despise doctrine; "for reproof — God grant we may never turn our ears from reproof; "for correction, for instruction in righteousness" — how a man should live and how a sinner should be made righteous; "that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim.
3:16).
2. My second position is, that the infinite God created heaven and earth and all that therein is, and the sea and all that is therein; that He rules in heaven and earth; that there is nothing hid from His gaze, nothing free from His control, nothing moving of itself absolutely; that God is "God only wise", the "I AM THAT I AM".
3. My third position is, that this God did for about thirty-three years walk on the earth in our own nature; that the Man Jesus is this God and that He is now in heaven in that same nature, even our own nature. And this God speaks in our text and says to His enemies : "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins".
Now we are brought face to face with two facts, namely, God speaks, and there are men who speak against Him and against His Word. You cannot open your newspaper today without seeing that His name, His word, His work, His glory are trampled under foot; and you, with myself, must more or less perceive that there is an imminent danger to us if we are left at all to receive the things which are taught by them of the Scriptures.
Between us, as we hope, believers in the Word and in the Being of God, and the scientist preaching his "science falsely so-called ", there is a great gulf. He cuts this Book away as to its inspiration; we believe it to be inspired. He derides creation work; we believe in it. He says we men have always ascended and are ascending. We say we descended in the Fall terribly; that man was made by the immediate operation of God in the image of God, his body formed out of the dust and his soul breathed into that body; so he be-came an immortal person, "a living soul". Sin has destroyed the life of the soul, but not the immortality of its being; and the life of the body is destroyed but for a time, for the day is coming when God will raise the bodies of both the righteous and the wicked. I say, there is a great gulf between us and those who deny the inspiration of Scripture and its testimony.
Now this Man who walked on the earth a poor Man, a broken-hearted Man, but a Teacher, an anointed Preacher of righteousness (Isa. 61:1), having the law of God in His heart (Psalm. 40:8) which He came to obey and fulfil — this Man is the only begotten Son of God, and He is the Word. You will find the same Person is spoken of as the Creator. In the first chapter of Genesis you read: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". In his Gospel the Apostle John says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." In the Hebrews the apostle says: "God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds". And of the same Person it is said: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth". And again: "No man hath seen God at any time" — that is just what the Lord said to Moses, "No man can see Me and live" — "the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him". His oneness with the Father, and therefore His eternity, are expressed in this Gospel by the Lord Jesus Himself. When answering Philip's request, "Show us the Father", He said: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. We are so one, one in nature, only distinguished in Person; so one that you cannot see Me without seeing the Father." The question of apprehending and seeing them both is another question which belongs to experience, but the fact, the truth, is that you cannot see Jesus Christ without seeing His eternal Father. And the Spirit is in them both and proceeds from them both.
James Popham proceeded to propound the saving work of Jesus Christ and the blessing of the Trinity being present in all who receive Him. These things are not yet jettisoned by Evangelicals so, for the sake of space and that they are not disputed, I have excluded them from this blog. Popham moves to the end of his sermon:
"If ye believe not that I am He" in these particulars, "ye shall die in your sins." Then this follows — that when a man, when a sinner does believe that Jesus is the I AM, that He is what the Scriptures declare Him to be, that He did what the Scriptures say He did, that He is where the Scriptures say He is, and is doing what the Scriptures say He is doing, he shall be saved, he shall not die in his sins. The sinner that by precious faith — faith which stands in the power of God, fixes here, stands here. casts himself down here before the God-Man Jesus Christ, he shall be saved, he shall not die in his sins.
So far I have set before you, as God I hope has helped me, fundamentals gathered up into one fundamental. We are face to face today with the most appalling infidelity, but let all the many that stand on the side of that terrible word uttered by a bishop in Westminster Abbey, "If there be a God" — let them approve of evolution and the destruction of theology, we have this BOOK, and we believe some have the Holy Ghost who spoke by holy men of old. We have His word for our teacher and our guide. Stand here, dear friends. Young people, you have much to meet with, much to contend against, if you fear God; but Stand fast by this, and remember one thing if you can—that when the Lord Jesus was tempted of the devil He said, "It is written, it is written". Say that also if and when you are tempted. If a subtle argument is brought to you, reply "It is written". This Book is written, these instructions are written. This Jesus is given, God sent Him. He freely came, He lovingly came. He freely, lovingly died; He rose again. He is in heaven. "It is written." That, if you are enabled to hold it, will keep you. The word of Jesus' patience will keep you, and you will keep it; and in the end this will be your blessed happy lot: "Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world".
Now I have delivered what was in my mind. Last Monday morning when I saw the terrible thing that the Bishop of Birmingham said to boys in Westminster Abbey, 0 how I felt for those boys! I felt such indignation and sorrow in my soul that made me cry to God to arise and vindicate His name and honour. And my mind has been with you young people more or less all the week. I have felt for you, and I feel for you. It may be that as I am an old man, God may remove me before the terrible day that is coming; but depend on this — you will meet with much "opposition of science falsely so-called", and if you have faith you will need it. Christ said to His disciples, having taught them many things: "Let these sayings sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men". As if He should say: "When I am weak, when I am crucified, when I seem to have no power, then remember I have taught" you these things". God help us to believe and to remember. Amen
I can hear the Theistic Evolutionists of the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney saying "Amen, we are not on display here." Wrong! You are included and exposed in your nakedness. Satan does not always come with a "club" as he did with Job. As with our Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane he may come with a kiss. You may say that you hold to the inspiration of Scripture but what you ignore is that you have been seduced to embrace the world. In your inflamed ardour, an ardour excited by having a love additional to your stated love of the Word you engage in deceit and secrecy. With subtlety you twist the the intent of the Word so that you can accomodate your adulterous relation with the world. This is sin. This is unfaithfulness.
Sam Drucker
Sunday, June 21, 2009
USELESS IDIOTS
I almost missed this wonderful blog over at Post-Darwinist on our heterdoxical friends.
Tune in for a boost!
Tune in for a boost!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Big Idea
There's a series of posts on the way over at Question Darwin on the Darwin's Big Idea exhibition in London. Notice how, on the one hand the SADs think that questions of origins are minor and do not have significant religious implications (so what Bible do they read?) and that the question is really a 'non-issue'; and on the other, the year of Darwin is being hailed as a great step forward in modern western rejection of a religious understanding of humankind! I don't remember any similar great noise being made about Kepler, or Copernicus or even Newton...because their discoveries did not establish the alternative religion of modern materialism!
So off we go, Connect09-ing answering questions that no one is asking, while we let the most dominant challenge to Christian belief slide by in spades. Half-witted at best.
So off we go, Connect09-ing answering questions that no one is asking, while we let the most dominant challenge to Christian belief slide by in spades. Half-witted at best.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Darwin did it
I liked the post on Science and Values recently. Its one of the blogs we watch (in the side column), but I thought I'd post up this quote from the linked piece:
"Appleyard comments that Le Fanu considers that Darwin is directly implicated in a contemporary cultural malaise: “He changed the world fundamentally. Along with those now fallen idols Marx and Freud, he accounts for the secularisation of western society. Darwinism is the foundational theory of all atheistic, scientific and materialist doctrines and of the notion that everything is ultimately explicable and that there is nothing special about it – the self-denigration and self-hatred, the great ‘nothing but’ story.”
Check out the whole story.
"Appleyard comments that Le Fanu considers that Darwin is directly implicated in a contemporary cultural malaise: “He changed the world fundamentally. Along with those now fallen idols Marx and Freud, he accounts for the secularisation of western society. Darwinism is the foundational theory of all atheistic, scientific and materialist doctrines and of the notion that everything is ultimately explicable and that there is nothing special about it – the self-denigration and self-hatred, the great ‘nothing but’ story.”
Check out the whole story.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
PBS does it again
Over in the USA, there's a bit of a buzz in the 'origins' community about a recent PBS (Public Broadcasting System) show that was a promo for Darwin. It pretended to be an 'expose' of 'Intelligent Design'. A website sprang up in no time flat that runs through Darwin's Failed Predictions. The slide show is worth a look...some of our SAD friends might slip over and take a look at how their great icon of creation has run up multiple dead ends...so much like the way the Roman church in its infatuation with Aristotle opposed Galileo.
Friday, May 16, 2008
darwin dissent
Just came across a newish blog:
Question Darwin
Its run by a medical doctor; don't know his views on age, but he certainly sticks it to Darwinism.
Question Darwin
Its run by a medical doctor; don't know his views on age, but he certainly sticks it to Darwinism.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Against God
From Before Darwin:237
...since time immemorial, the most obvious argument against God's existence and source of doubt about his unique and universal goodness has been the manifest imperfection of nature, and especially the misery of a great deal of existence that tells of nothing but a bleak purposelessness. As Darwin wrote: 'it revolts our understanding to suppose that [God's] benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?'
This is from the chapter that deals with evil, goodness, and natural theology. Both the author and the natural theologians he studies are oblivious to the problem of the fall and its central position in Christianity.
Did I write 'problem'? Rather, the fall is the great rend in creation, it is the obliteration, the undoing, of the very-goodness declared by God, and rejection of relationship with God; it is man ejecting God from his life and world. If our theology of God is deficient because of a failed hermeneutic of creation (and I suspect it is in neo-evangelical circles), then our understanding of the fall and the radical besmirching of life with death that came in its train is also inadequate.
Oddly, I don't think that atheism or its materialist cousin has a helpful position on this.
What contemporary 'natural theology' is doing, (and Thomson touches on this, albeit without really understanding it, in my estimation) is to go behind the results of the fall and look at the structure of life and earth history, reading it in the knowledge of history in the Bible, but also seeing, on its own terms, its dependence. Materailism claims that life has its life in itself, finally, but it is not evident! Ironically, materialism now relies upon a certain extended 'vitalism' to explain life, the very thing for which it criticises pre-modern biology!
I met some clients of my employer recently who are profoundly disabled. It was heartbreaking to think of the frustration and bitterness of their experience, and of their parents. The materialist can offer them only dust and blank-faced emptiness in the despair of their position; our Creator God offers new life; restoration to the 'very good' and acknowledgement in Christ that all is not just not well, with the creation but that it is broken; yet his grace shines through to the re-creation.
...since time immemorial, the most obvious argument against God's existence and source of doubt about his unique and universal goodness has been the manifest imperfection of nature, and especially the misery of a great deal of existence that tells of nothing but a bleak purposelessness. As Darwin wrote: 'it revolts our understanding to suppose that [God's] benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?'
This is from the chapter that deals with evil, goodness, and natural theology. Both the author and the natural theologians he studies are oblivious to the problem of the fall and its central position in Christianity.
Did I write 'problem'? Rather, the fall is the great rend in creation, it is the obliteration, the undoing, of the very-goodness declared by God, and rejection of relationship with God; it is man ejecting God from his life and world. If our theology of God is deficient because of a failed hermeneutic of creation (and I suspect it is in neo-evangelical circles), then our understanding of the fall and the radical besmirching of life with death that came in its train is also inadequate.
Oddly, I don't think that atheism or its materialist cousin has a helpful position on this.
What contemporary 'natural theology' is doing, (and Thomson touches on this, albeit without really understanding it, in my estimation) is to go behind the results of the fall and look at the structure of life and earth history, reading it in the knowledge of history in the Bible, but also seeing, on its own terms, its dependence. Materailism claims that life has its life in itself, finally, but it is not evident! Ironically, materialism now relies upon a certain extended 'vitalism' to explain life, the very thing for which it criticises pre-modern biology!
I met some clients of my employer recently who are profoundly disabled. It was heartbreaking to think of the frustration and bitterness of their experience, and of their parents. The materialist can offer them only dust and blank-faced emptiness in the despair of their position; our Creator God offers new life; restoration to the 'very good' and acknowledgement in Christ that all is not just not well, with the creation but that it is broken; yet his grace shines through to the re-creation.
Darwin's transformation
From Before Darwin: 232
Charles Darwin's transformation from Christian believer to agnostic 'crept over [him] at a very slow rate'. For a long time he held on to a position as a theist, being prepared to believe in the existence of a God but rejecting both the Old Testament, 'from its manifestly false history of the world ... and from its attributing to God the feelings of a vengeful tyrant', and also the miracles of the New Testament.
Darwin trod the path that many individuals, and indeed the broad social sweep has and is treading.
Charles Darwin's transformation from Christian believer to agnostic 'crept over [him] at a very slow rate'. For a long time he held on to a position as a theist, being prepared to believe in the existence of a God but rejecting both the Old Testament, 'from its manifestly false history of the world ... and from its attributing to God the feelings of a vengeful tyrant', and also the miracles of the New Testament.
Darwin trod the path that many individuals, and indeed the broad social sweep has and is treading.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
So like a Buddhist
In the current issue of 'Go' the Interserve magazine (let's all support Interserve!!) there is a fabulous article about an Interserve worker discussing the Bible with a Buddhist monk.
In precis, the monk was confounded by God's care for the poor, the weak and the suffering. In Buddhist lore, people suffered because they had bad 'karma', and they prospered becuase they had good 'karma', thus the strong the powerful, the rich, represented 'god's' favour (I know, no 'god' in Buddhism).
So in Buddhism, as it appeared from the article, it is the strong who triump. In Christ, it is the poor in spirit; quite the contrary!
So, knowing that fruit of the Spirit ("But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness"), along with this ("Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth . . ."), it seems odd that one could entertain that 'evolution' which is right up there with, "kill the weak" would have any part of a non-fallen reality.
The internal contradiction of theistic evolution, and all similar forms of pagan syncretism, is that on the one hand, we've got God, declaring his characteristics (see above), presumably having made the creation consistently with these declared characteristics, but evolution working in opposition to God's declared characteristics! How amazing, God is like . . . love, evolution is like . . death and destruction, but (in the demented TE view) God somehow used evolution!!
Notwithstanding that the idea of evolution has a pagan history, a recent genesis on the assumption that their is no god, and no real evidence for it occuring (aside from question-begging and equivocation: that is confusing adaptation for transmutation of kinds of life forms with growing genetic information), TEs see some sort of consistency in reality between a cosmos grinding down the weak (and heading for dissolution) and God who is love.
Mad and madder.
In precis, the monk was confounded by God's care for the poor, the weak and the suffering. In Buddhist lore, people suffered because they had bad 'karma', and they prospered becuase they had good 'karma', thus the strong the powerful, the rich, represented 'god's' favour (I know, no 'god' in Buddhism).
So in Buddhism, as it appeared from the article, it is the strong who triump. In Christ, it is the poor in spirit; quite the contrary!
So, knowing that fruit of the Spirit ("But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness"), along with this ("Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth . . ."), it seems odd that one could entertain that 'evolution' which is right up there with, "kill the weak" would have any part of a non-fallen reality.
The internal contradiction of theistic evolution, and all similar forms of pagan syncretism, is that on the one hand, we've got God, declaring his characteristics (see above), presumably having made the creation consistently with these declared characteristics, but evolution working in opposition to God's declared characteristics! How amazing, God is like . . . love, evolution is like . . death and destruction, but (in the demented TE view) God somehow used evolution!!
Notwithstanding that the idea of evolution has a pagan history, a recent genesis on the assumption that their is no god, and no real evidence for it occuring (aside from question-begging and equivocation: that is confusing adaptation for transmutation of kinds of life forms with growing genetic information), TEs see some sort of consistency in reality between a cosmos grinding down the weak (and heading for dissolution) and God who is love.
Mad and madder.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
This boy knew his Darwin
The Finnish teenager who killed other children at his school (8 Nov 2008) was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald as saying: "I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection".
Now there's someone who knows their Darwin.
I wonder what his view would have been if he'd been taught that he is in the image of the God who is love and who spoke the cosmos into existence, with us for eternal relationship with him? That he and his fellows are of great value and their lives, actions and beliefs are eternally significant.
Of course, if he'd been exposed to the Sydney Anglican mainstream he'd have been told none of the above, because the kick in the tail would have been: but God did all this by the mind numbing meanness and waste of evolution and its aeons of disease and death constituting the 'very good'. Great eh?
He, Geoffery Dahmer, Adolph Hitler and Stalin are great examples of 'sow evolution, reap death'.
Now there's someone who knows their Darwin.
I wonder what his view would have been if he'd been taught that he is in the image of the God who is love and who spoke the cosmos into existence, with us for eternal relationship with him? That he and his fellows are of great value and their lives, actions and beliefs are eternally significant.
Of course, if he'd been exposed to the Sydney Anglican mainstream he'd have been told none of the above, because the kick in the tail would have been: but God did all this by the mind numbing meanness and waste of evolution and its aeons of disease and death constituting the 'very good'. Great eh?
He, Geoffery Dahmer, Adolph Hitler and Stalin are great examples of 'sow evolution, reap death'.
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