Democratic Morality

I am blessed to live in the greatest democracy in history. The ability for the majority to decide who leads and what laws to subject ourselves to is something much of the world only dreams about. From the beginning of our country, its leaders and its laws have had a decidedly Christian bent. The very genesis of our formation was predicated on the notion the "all men are created equal." A decidedly Judeo-Christian concept and just one piece of evidence of the large influence Biblical ideas have had on our notions of right and wrong.

A large part of the work of good government is to codify these notions of right and wrong into laws that protect its citizenry. We make murder and stealing punishable offenses. This is known as the "Criminal Code." Other matters regarding citizen's obligations to each other and our government are covered in the "Civil Code." Rules governing marriage and divorce, business relationships or the amount of taxes a citizen is obligated to pay are not nearly as cut and dried issues of right and wrong as points of the Criminal Code. Still, both sets of laws are rooted in a nation's collective notion of morality.

Over the past decade there has been a seismic shift in the popular view of morality regarding homosexuality and the Civil Code. More specifically whether people of the same sex should be allowed to enter into state sanctioned marriage. Popular media has even gone to the extent of comparing it to African American's struggle for civil rights. The "struggle for marriage equality," as it has been labeled, is now ubiquitous in our culture and a reality that every Christian must confront.

Disdain and Perversion
One aspect of this new push for "gay rights" is the disdain its proponents are willing to heap on all who disagree with their views. They have unilaterally seized the "moral high ground" and all who oppose them are essentially "moral idiots." Christians don't need to sit still for this, but unfortunately, most immediately resort to Biblical standards of morality, which bear little weight with gay rights advocates and can even make matters worse.

Rather, I think the first response should be a question, "Is there such a thing a sexual perversion?" In other words, can it be said that becoming sexually aroused by some things should be considered wrong?  For most people, even gay rights advocates, the thoughtful answer will be, "Yes." We have now agreed that, when it comes to sexual arousal, a moral line does exist that defines right from wrong. What remains is to agree on where exactly to draw this line and why.

At this point the typical fall-back position involves the word, "Love." If two people love each other, then they should be able to have sex. Who are we to stand in the way of love? Putting aside a poorly conceived notion of love, this "love rule" allows them to place many repulsive sexual perversions (pedophilia & bestiality, in particular) squarely below the line while keeping gay sex above it. However, there are some problems to the"love rule."  "Love" cannot be ruled out in every obvious sexual perversion. There are cases of incest where both parties claim to love each other. The "love rule" is clearly problematic. Still it is hard to reject any rule with the word "love" in it.

The important point here is for our opponents to realize that both parties are drawing a moral line when it comes to sex. Christians, using a decidedly less nebulous source of justification for their line than their gay counterparts, are not "moral idiots" and the moral conclusions drawn by the "love rule" are not necessarily obvious or entirely workable.

I Don't Owe You Anything
Although the Biblical standard is taken at face value by Christians and dismissed out-of-hand by others, it bears up under a more rational moral discussion, especially considering the basis of any obligation to obey a set of rules or standards. For example, is tax evasion immoral? Most people would respond in the affirmative, but why? Because, as citizens we enjoy certain rights, protections and government services for which we should be obligated to pay. We owe the government our allegiance and support because of what the government has given us.

This same simple moral concept lies at the heart of a Christian's obligation to follow Biblical morality. It is the notion that we are created and supported by a superior being. Morally, we are in debt to that being and they possess the moral right to set reasonable boundaries on our behavior. Just as a parent has the right to regulate their children. And this is precisely the problem. Non-Christians do not recognize the existence of a creator God nor His right to regulate their behavior. Christians need to recognize that God created man with free will and this is a part of God's plan. It is both sad and fruitless for Christians to try to impose Biblical morality on non-Christians. Instead we should spend our time convincing them of God's existence and love, not trying to impose His rules for us, His children.

The Divorce Exception
As the nation struggles with whether its laws should allow and support gay marriage, Christians should step back and consider the case of divorce and Biblical morality. Divorce in various forms has been legal since the founding of our nation. It is also allowed in Biblical law. However, divorce is decidedly not something God considers right behavior.

"For I hate divorce,” says the Lord, the God of Israel - Malachi 2:16 (NASB)

And yet it is specifically allowed in Jewish Law. A conundrum which was brought to the attention of Jesus.

Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” - Mathew 19:3-9 (NASB)

Here Jesus is giving us God's reasoning behind the Jewish divorce rules. It is interesting to note that even by following the rule you could be guilty of another violation (adultery), and yet still the rule exists. It was "permitted" because God understood that we are deeply flawed. It was a sad plan B for those for whom plan A was simply intolerable. Christians would be wise to consider the example of divorce when formulating their response to the push for gay marriage.  Gay marriage is a sad and unfortunate plan B. The United States is not a religious institution and its laws must govern people of all faiths and philosophies. If God can compromise as a response to man's frailty, shouldn't our government?

Denial of Service Attacks
For Christians, the current front line in the gay marriage debate seems centered around our obligations to provide services to support gay people and in particular gay weddings. The media is more than happy to sensationalize Christian bakers and wedding planners who feel understandably uncomfortable with providing services to gay weddings and decide to refuse them. A Christian needs to take a hard look at their stand in this regard. We've already discussed how God hates divorce. Does that mean a Christian should deny services to divorcees? How about "sinners" in general? All of a sudden you client base is pretty small (i.e., zero).

The vocations of Christians present them with unique opportunities to interface with non-Christians. These points of intersection (cross-ing) provide us the opportunity to witness to non-Christians regarding the love of our God. To scatter seeds. This does not occur when we sit in judgement and refuse to serve those we deem unworthy. As Jesus said of Himself,

"For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." - John 3:16-18 (NASB)

It's God's Job
Christians who know their Bible realize that the push for gay marriage and the rise of homosexuality in general, is actually predicted by the apostle Paul. In Romans 1:18-25 he delivers a condemning description that bears an undeniable resemblance to the attitudes of modern atheists/evolutionists and then tells of the consequences of these philosophies.

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. - Romans 1:26-27 (NASB)

This passage frames homosexual urges as both a consequence and a judgement. This is just one more reminder that it is God's job to judge and He is on it. He never asked for our help in judging or condemning. Our job is to point people to Him, not to condemn them or convince them to follow rules that make no sense to them. Much of the vitriol and disdain we endure is a deserved response to our abandoning job number one: spreading the GOOD NEWS. Let's stop trying to pull weeds in other peoples gardens and get busy planting seeds.

Monkeys and Typewriters

In January, British scientists announced that they had stored data on, and retrieved it from, DNA.  Among other things, a lab encoded all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets on some DNA and mailed it to another lab that successfully retrieved it with 100% accuracy. In describing the rationale behind their work, Nick Goldman said, "We realized that DNA itself is a really efficient way of storing information."

This event probably came as no surprise to Stephen C. Meyer, author of 2009 book Signature in the Cell. In his book, Meyer carefully and meticulously lays out the argument for the theory of Intelligent Design (ID). One of the cornerstones of this argument is the information stored in DNA. The DNA molecule contains the instructions that the cell needs to manufacture the hundreds of proteins that it requires. A protein is a chain different amino acids (generally at least 150 long) linked together by peptide bonds and then folded into a functional form.

Except for the peptide bonds and the folding, a protein can be compared to the paragraphs you are reading in this blog.  Instead of 26 letters, spaces and punctuation, a protein is composed of 20 amino acids. For a paragraph, not just any sequence of letters will do, only a specific sequence of letters forms a functional paragraph that accomplishes its intended purpose.  In the same way proteins must be composed of a very specific sequence of amino acids.

Surprisingly, the invention of computers has even deepened this analogy. In order to store paragraphs in a computer, engineers had to figure out how use a series of on/off transistors to represent 26 letters and punctuation. They developed a "binary" code called the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) which uses a series of zeroes and ones (1=on and 0=off, each called a "bit") to represent each letter. For example the code 01000001 represents the uppercase letter "A" and 01000010 the uppercase letter "B".  As you can see, it takes 8 bits to represent each letter. With 8 bits we can represent up to 2⁸, or 256 different letters and symbols. As it turns out, DNA stores the information on which of the 20 amino acids it needs to combine to build proteins in much the same way.

Instead of a binary code, DNA uses a "quadrinary", or 4 symbol, code composed of 4 different nucleotide bases (instead of bits). Because DNA needs to represent the 20 different amino acids (plus some start and stop markers) it uses a series of 3 bases for each amino acid which allows it 4³=64 possible combinations. Using only two bases would only allow for 4²=16, too few.  The cell has complex protein machinery to translate each set of 3 nucleotide bases into the correct amino acid, link it with the next using a peptide bond and fold it into a protein.

Conveniently, using 4 bases allows for representing 256 possible symbols, the same as the ASCII code. This certainly made the British scientist's job all that much easier. Their work has inadvertently illustrated one of Meyer's observations regarding DNA, that it is an information storage mechanism like a computer hard disk or an old school piece of paper.  DNA and the information it contains are two separate entities. The DNA molecule is not just a random jumble of meaningless bases, it is a functional linear sequence of bases, each three of which corresponds to a particular amino acid just as each 8 bits in a computer text file corresponds to a particular symbol based on the ASCII code.  Proteins, like coherent paragraphs composed of sequences of letters, are composed of a very specific sequence of amino acids.

How did this specific base sequence in DNA come to be?  Molecular chemistry cannot explain the correspondence between the three base combinations and the amino acids. Nor is there any particular affinity between amino acids that compose proteins.  Just as the letters of our alphabet have no natural affinity to the particular 8 bits assigned to them in the ASCII code or to each other.  Bits correspond to letters because the designers of computers deemed that they should and letters they represent are ordered by intelligent actors crafting coherent messages.  Natural selection is of no use as an explanation because natural selection cannot operate without a method of reproduction. We know no method of reproduction without DNA.  DNA is worthless without the protein machinery to translate it and produce other proteins. For the 50 years since the discovery of DNA, molecular biologists have been trying to find an explanation, any explanation, for the origin of the protein information stored in the DNA molecule. They have found no natural mechanistic process, only chance. Unfortunately, the probability that amino acids randomly assembled themselves in the correct sequence to create even just one protein by chance is essentially zero.

Meyer does a great job of walking us through this calculation and it is certainly worth reading. As it turns out the odds of a single 150 amino acid protein chain coming together through random chance are 1 in 10¹⁶⁴.  This is an astronomically small probability and difficult for anyone to conceive. But perhaps given the billions of years that the universe had and the vast number of planets it contains, there is enough time that it could have happened. In an effort to dispel this notion, Meyer walks us through another calculation of the "probabilistic resources of the universe." This is calculated by taking the number of subatomic particles (electrons, neutrons and protons) in the observable universe (10⁸⁰ particles) multiplied by the number of seconds since the Big Bang (10¹⁷ seconds) and the number of possible reactions per second (10⁴³ maximum reactions per second, a number related to the speed of light). This number is a mere 10¹⁴⁰. Still shy of the odds of a single small protein arising from chance by 10²⁴, or a trillion trillion.

So, the odds of just one protein appearing by chance is at most 1 in a trillion trillion.  This says nothing about the hundreds of other proteins within a living cell, and the complex nature of their interdependent relationships. Scientists have estimated the odds of all the component proteins in a minimally functional cell arising by chance as 1 in 10^41,000. Our inability to comprehend such small numbers sometimes leads us to fall back on the fact that is not zero. Any chance is still a chance, right? What if we just got lucky? What if there were actually more probabilistic resources available? One of the more ridiculous theories recently put forth by cosmologists is that the universe we see is just one of an infinite number of alternate universes.  In essence, a "multiverse" with infinite probabilistic resources.  We just happen to be living in the lucky winner of an infinite cosmic lottery.

This harkens back to the old adage that a room full of monkeys with typewriters, given infinite time, could eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. One can imagine a strange hypothetical situation where an imaginary archaeologist discovers a sheaf of pages with the complete sonnets of Shakespeare and declares that it could have occurred by chance (without mentioning primates or typewriters). Of course, that would be ludicrous. No sane person would believe him. Not only does paper not assemble itself, but letters don't arrange themselves in neat and orderly rows by chance, not to mention that this is not just any sequence of letters, they actually make sense and convey meaning.  This is the type of insanity we are talking about. There is absolutely no evidence for the existence of a multiverse. The soul purpose of such futile speculation is to avoid the only remaining conclusion: that ID is in fact the only valid explanation.

The scientists who inscribed DNA with the sonnets of Shakespeare have unwittingly introduced an ironic twist into this silly debate. If somehow a future unknown scientist were to stumble onto this discarded Shakespeare DNA and decode its contents, would they recognize the work of intelligent agents or would they spend half a century developing outlandish theories in a vain effort to avoid the only obvious conclusion? Monkeys with typewriters indeed.

"...men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures." - Romans 1:18-23 (NASB)

Nonsense or Nonscience

In November of this year Senator Marco Rubio caused a small uproar when he responded to an unexpected question during an interview with GQ.  The question was simply, “How old do you think the earth is?”  Marco's sputtering and convoluted answer betrayed a position that is all to common for America's professing Christians.  We live in a country that has a tense but polite truce between two world-views that are at war. Nowhere is this more evident than in the political arena. Marco was in a tough spot that no professing Christian would envy.  How could he reconcile his foolish superstitions with the indisputable theory-facts of god-free science and still maintain some semblance of intellect?  Unfortunately, it has somehow come to this oddly stark choice: either throw your brain or Jesus under the bus. A gut-wrenching choice indeed. But why has it come to this?  Is there some unspoken cannon of scientific knowledge that must be accepted or rejected in its entirety in order to avoid being labelled and imbecile? Last I looked, there was no such scientific "bible" containing the indisputable facts of true knowledge.  Actually, the notion itself is the antithesis of science. It is science masquerading as mathematics.

What I mean is that true science should hold all knowledge in a constant state of doubt.  If there is one basic tennet of science, it is that nothing is settled.  Everything is subject to questioning, debate, testing and experimentation.  The areas of knowledge that fall under the label "science" are not things that can be proven with absolute certainty, whereas the concepts of mathematics can be.  A scientific theory is a very different animal than a mathematical one.  No matter how much a scientist may wish a theory to become a fact it can never be.  Much like Geppetto wishing Pinocchio to become a real boy without the benefit of a Blue Fairy. Even worse, there are areas of knowledge that adopt the monicker of "science" but are mostly unworthy of the title.  Like inanimate marionettes their practitioners prance them about on strings on stages composed of academic journals hoping that the public will be gullible enough to mistake them for real science. These are fields such as Anthropology, Archeology and Geology dealing with questions and concepts that are not testable by either direct observation or experimentation.  These fields are more forensic than scientific in nature and many of their theories are mere speculation and conjecture. I am not saying that these fields have not made valuable contributions to society. They have. But they are all to often careless and overreaching and clouded with opinion rather than unbiased research.

What I am trying to get across here is that what so many people wish to pass off as a monolithic and cohesive body of knowledge that they call science is nothing of the sort.  Rather it is a spectrum of knowledge and assertion supported by bulwarks of varying strength and veracity, none of which can attain to the status of unassailable fact. Indeed the very idea of a scientific concept as dogma should be anathema to any real "scientist."  Unfortunately, the popular discourse does not welcome debate on scientific issues, rather it condescends to and shames any and all who might dare to question certain theories.  Certain ideas and concepts have been walled off and declared forbidden.  To breach any of these barriers brings a hasty cacophony of cries of scientific "blasphemy" from the self-anointed priests of science.

While the reasons for this attitude vary from pride to greed to just plain obstinance, there is a strong correlation between these blasphemy-barriers and those scientific theories that prop up atheistic philosophies.  Such is the case with evolution and the age of the earth.  The emotional responses that questioning these theories elicits from seemingly Vulcan-like scientists betrays them as impure half-breeds having religious sensibilities underneath thin logical facades.  There is no rational defense for the impolite and irrational rhetoric that flows from otherwise cool headed individuals.  Why should my doubts regarding the results of the radiometric dating of rocks or the origins of life cause them such consternation? Why should their ridicule and condemnation force me to reconcile what are, at the core, inevitably irreconcilable philosophies? For indeed it is philosophies that are at odds and not science as they claim.

And that is the bottom line, isn't it? Atheists hiding behind a hijacked veil of "science" and throwing hand grenades at those who dare believe that God exists. Atheists wish to declare a monopoly on intelligence while exiling all others under a banner emblazoned with "FOOLS." But by doing so they have rejected an area of knowledge, the knowledge of God, as being nonsense. They hold the laws of the physical universe as paramount and preeminent.  The very idea of a being that is not bound by and controlled by such laws, who might break them, or worse, rewrite them at any instant is utterly repulsive. They reject the divine based on doctrine rather than discernment because His existence necessitates the obliteration of the very ground on which they plant their feet while shaking their fists at Him. And in their passion and hypocrisy reveals their nonscience.

"...men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." - Romans 1:18-25

The Man in the Monkey Suit

Recently, an old friend/coworker of mine re-connected with me and the conversation swerved toward theology for the first time in our relationship.  Turns out Jeff (not his real name) is an atheist and he wanted to discuss his beliefs (or lack thereof) with someone with opposing views.  At the time, I was in the middle of re-reading C. S. Lewis' book Mere Christianity.  It wasn't too far into our discussion before I challenged Jeff to read Mere Christianity and volunteered to read a book of his choosing.  A few day's later Richard Dawkin's book The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution showed up in the mail.

I was aware of Richard Dawkin's reputation as a vocal atheist and I wasn't looking forward to reading anything he'd written.  Not because I was afraid he'd shake my faith, but because I'd seen some interviews and heard some excerpts from his books.  The man seems to take great pleasure in concocting new insults for those who don't agree with his opinions.  He wasted no time in confirming my fears by calling creationists a "baying pack of ignoramuses" in the first paragraph. This set the tone for the entire book.

Apparently, these "ignoramuses" don't just disbelieve that animals all evolved from a single cell, they deny any form of adaptation whatsoever.  This could be deduced from the fact that almost the entire first half of the book is devoted to establishing that almost every life form on the planet is capable of radical adaption in response to their environment.  This isn't something I disagree with, in fact, I actually embrace it as further evidence of God's ingenious design for His creation.

Adaptation: A Must Have Feature
Adaptation of an extreme sort would be necessary for animals to survive a transition from a pre-flood earth to the much harsher and varied climates of the post-flood planet. The book of Genesis gives us some clues:

Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. - Genesis 1:6-10 (NASB)

These verses seem to indicate that the pre-flood earth was surrounded by a sort of water barrier.  Such a barrier would have homogenized the earth's climate (like a greenhouse) and resulted in far fewer species (few enough to fit on the ark) since there would have been no need for animals to adapt to widely varying climates. The assertion that the pre-flood earth was a much more hospitable place is bolstered by the fact that only afterwards did God allow Noah and his descendants to eat meat.

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. - Genesis 9:1-3 (NASB)

Why the sudden change of heart about meat?  Because the pre-flood greenhouse was gone.  From that point forward seasons would dictate when food could be grown and in many harsher climates meat would become the only available food source.

To believe the account of Biblical flood, one has to believe in Adaptation.  If fact, in order for the current number of species in a mere 4,000 years one has to believe in a sort of adaptation on steroids. This has historically represented a very big difficulty for the Biblical timeline.  Fortunately, the budding field of Epigenetics is now producing evidence that this accelerated rate of adaptation may not be a problem after all.

Carbon Footprints
Dawkin's explanation of carbon dating is found on pages 103-107.  Carbon dating is based on the assumption that the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere (and thus in all living things via the food chain) has been a relative constant throughout history.  When a living thing dies and is removed from the food chain, the carbon-14 in their body begins to decay with a half-life of 5,730 years.  By measuring the difference between the amount of carbon-14 remaining in a fossil and the carbon-14 that should have been present at the time of death we can calculate a rough estimate of the fossil's age.  But is the assumption of a constant ratio of carbon isotopes realistic?

Carbon-14 is special because it is continually being made by cosmic rays bombarding nitrogen atoms in the upper atmosphere. - The Greatest Show On Earth, p 104.

There is every reason to believe that the antediluvian atmosphere would have exhibited a much smaller ratio of carbon-14 than our current one.  Arguably, a newly created atmosphere would have been totally free of carbon-14.  In addition the water barrier surrounding the earth would have greatly reduced the number of cosmic rays reaching the upper atmosphere. It would also make sense that the majority of fossils in existence would be pre-flood plants and animals encased in the massive sediment deposition resulting from such a catastrophic event.  We would expect these fossils to have much lower levels of carbon-14, not because they are billions of years old, but because of the altered environment in which they lived. Once again we see that more than one theory can fit the existing facts.

The Man in the Monkey Suit
Dawkins believes that there is only one possible conclusion from the evidence: that The Theory of Evolution is an undeniable fact. His belief is so strong that he makes little effort to hide the revulsion and contempt he feels for anyone who might dare to interpret the evidence any other way. How can I, a college educated, reasonably intelligent and fairly informed individual, come to such a different conclusion?  It seems obvious to me that the reason is that one of his biggest "facts" has been left undeclared: that there is no God. It is this unstated presupposition that informs his investigation and drives his conclusions.

On page 14 of Dawkin's book he describes an experiment performed by a Professor Daniel J. Simons at the University of Illinois.  In the experiment, participants are asked to count how many times a basketball is passed back and forth between a group of people in a short video.  After the video is over and the counts are tallied, the researcher then asks, "How many people noticed the gorilla?"

About half of the participants insist there was no gorilla. In a moment of uncharacteristic humility, Dawkin's too admits that he did not see any gorilla the first time he was subjected to the experiment. Although his purpose in mentioning this is to suggest that his opponents are not paying attention, the illustration is a double-edged sword.  Richard is so eager to bolster his atheistic world-view that were God himself to stride across his field of view He would go unnoticed.

The Real Question
And this is the real issue.  Belief in Evolution and the questions regarding whether evidence supports it or not do not occur, cannot occur, in an intellectual vacuum.  As much as various parties wish to don the mantle of Vulcan-like passionless logic, they cannot.  There is too much at stake in the answer. The reality is that belief in Evolution is simply the pedestal that supports a denial of the existence of a creator. This is the real question: IS THERE A GOD?

The entire issue reminds me of the parable in Luke 16:19-31, where Jesus describes how someone in the torment of Hell asks Abraham to send someone back from the dead to warn his brothers:

And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’ - Luke 16:27-31 (NASB)

The Theory of Evolution is actually a red herring.  What Dawkins and other Evolution zealots should be looking for is proof of the existence of God.  Two thousand years ago Jesus himself was asked for similar proof, to which he replied:

“An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." - Matthew 12:39-40 (NASB)

So what about it?  Was Jesus really killed and resurrected on the third day?  This is the sign for our generation.  This is the preposterous belief we should be proving or disproving. Compared to this singular question, evolution versus creationism is just a sideshow.

Dear Young Man

Dear Young Man,

Let me start by apologizing that it has taken me so long to respond to the voice mail message you left this Monday.  It took a good deal of courage for you to make that call and lay out your intentions like that and you have earned my respect for doing so.  The reason for my delayed reply is that I felt such openness on your part deserved an equally candid and complete response.  I’m sure that in some respects this will feel like overkill, however, in my experience people too often leave things unsaid either out of laziness or fear and inevitably it leads to conflict and misunderstanding.  It is with that in mind that I write this letter.

On Dating

I think the best place to start is from the very beginning.  When it comes to the relationship between a man and a woman, the beginning is Genesis.

So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.  The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.  The man said, 

“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.” 

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.  –Genesis 2:21-24 (NASB)

Now, you may be saying, “Whoa, hold on!  I only wanted permission to date your daughter, not marry her!”  And that is exactly my point.

What is dating?  To most, dating is just two people of the opposite sex getting together to have fun and learn more about each other.  This seems innocent enough.  Unfortunately, the whole concept of dating along with the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” are rife with implied pseudo-commitments.  This becomes more obvious when you examine the language surrounding dating.  Words like “going steady,” “cheating” or “breaking up”.  The ideas expressed by these words are the same as those in Genesis 2, i.e., the notion of an exclusive relationship between a man and a woman.  Only in the case of dating it is not marriage as intended, but rather something closer to “marriage light”.

There is no biblical context for this type of relationship.  In fact, the whole notion of a pseudo-commitment, an easily dissolved bond with another human being, flies in the face of God’s design for human relationships.  Faithfulness, love, loyalty, long-suffering, these are words that defined Godly relationships.

“But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING.  Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.  But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.” – Matthew 5:34-36 (NASB)

In reality, there are usually only two conclusions to a dating relationship.  Either it ends badly, with hurt feelings and the loss of a friendship, or marriage.  For those people who are too young to entertain the latter of these options the result is, more often than not, the former.  For these reasons, we have encouraged all of our children to avoid the exclusive relationships with members of the opposite sex that are part-and-parcel to the concept of dating.  Instead, we encourage them to make friendships, pursue group activities and not to give in to the popular pressures to “play house” at an age when marriage is not even an option.

On Touching

Touching another human being is packed with meaning and emotion.  We even speak of people “violating” our personal space when they merely get too close to us.  The feelings and emotions communicated by touching are extremely potent, but they can also be easily misinterpreted.  The message one person intended to communicate through a touch may be worlds apart from the message that is recieved.

When we allow another person to touch us, we are often expressing a social bond with that person.  Outside of marriage, this implied and usually unarticulated commitment clouds and confuses the relationship between a man and woman, often causing it persist longer than it might otherwise have.  By engaging in hand-holding, kissing or other forms of touching we achieve a fleeting thrill at the cost of long-term relationship complications.

This is especially true for men because we are much more easily excited sexually.  The endorphins released by our brains because of sexual titillation elicit cravings for more.  Instead of just being a friend to a girl or woman, we become a junkie looking to score a fix and our “girlfriend” gets to be our drug dealer.  This is an unnecessary difficulty in the already complicated arena of relationships.

Because of these things, we have encouraged our children to avoid all forms touching the opposite sex until marriage.

On the Future

Someday you may meet a girl about whom you will think, “I’m going to marry her!”  That will be an exciting moment.  I know, because I’ve been there.  Unfortunately, I used the strength of my confidence to justify doing all the things I’ve talked about in this letter.  I told myself, “It’s okay, because I am definitely going to marry this girl.  Marriage is just a ceremony anyway.”  Unfortunately you can’t predict the future.  In my case, the girl decided she wasn’t going to marry me.  The break-up was heart-wrenching and lonely.  I had spent the two years of our relationship almost exclusively with this girl, sacrificing other relationships including my most important one: Jesus.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”  Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.  Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”  But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.  Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.  – James 4:13-17 (NASB)

You can’t predict the future.  Using future intentions to justify the present actions is both arrogant and foolish.  I have exhorted my children not to fall into this trap.

In Summary

The bottom line is pretty simple.  My wife and I discourage our children from getting involved in exclusive relationships.  Dating, as it is commonly practiced, doesn’t fit into this philosophy.  Neither does any kind of touching.  This is our wish for our kids until they are old enough to pursue a relationship to its God ordained conclusion.  I believe that the “marriage light” concept that is inherent in dating cheapens a person’s approach to relational commitments and has weakened our society’s concept of marriage.

Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?”  And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,  and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’?  So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”  They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?”  He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.  And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”  – Matthew 19:3-9 (NASB)

I realize that this may not be the answer you wanted to hear, and you may not even agree with everything I’ve written.  As you can see, this has not always been my thinking on the subject.  My views have been forged over many years of coming to grips with my own youthful mistakes.  Mistakes I wish my own children to avoid.  Someday they will be old enough to decide whether marriage is for them.  In the mean-time we promote their involvement in group activities and in maintaining multiple healthy friendships with members of both sexes.  In short, my answer is, “No, you may not date my daughter, but you can be her friend and brother.”

Yours in Christ,
Randall Doser

The Book, Part 2

In my last post I touched on the incredible uniqueness of the Bible.  I also lamented the fact that so many people believe that this amazing book is riddled with inaccuracies and historical inconsistencies.  This belief (interesting choice of words) is based largely on ignorance. In an effort to dispel some of this ignorance I devoted most of the post to evidence for the reliability of the Old Testament.  This post is focused on the New Testament's reliability.  Once again, this information is adapted from Josh McDowell's excellent book The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict.

Is the New Testament Historical?

Tests for the Reliability of Ancient Literature

C. Sanders, in Introduction to Research in English Literary History (New York: Macmillan Co., 1952, pg. 143), lists and explains the three basic principles of historiography.  These are:

1. The Bibliographical Test
2. The Internal Evidence Test, and
3. The External Evidence Test

The Bibliographical Test

Extant Greek Manuscripts
Uncials	307
Minuscules	2,860
Lectionaries	2,410
Papyri	109
Subtotal	5,686
Manuscripts in Other Languages
Latin Vulgate	10,000+
Ethiopic	2,000+
Slavic	4,101
Armenian	2,587
Syriac Pashetta	350+
Bohairic	100
Arabic	75
Old Latin	50
Anglo Saxon	7
Gothic	6
Sogdian	3
Old Syriac	2
Persian	2
Frankish	1
Subtotal	19,284+
Total All MSS	24,970+
Information gathered from the following sources: Michael Welte of the Institute for New Testament Studies in Munster, Germany; Kurt Aland’s Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 87, 1968; Kurt Aland’s Kurzgefasste Liste der Griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments, 1963; Kurt Aland’s “Neve Nevtestamentliche Papyri III,” New Testament Studies, July, 1976; Bruce Metzger’s The Early Versions of the New Testament, Clarendon Press, 1977; New Testament Manuscript Studies, (eds.) Merrill M. Parvis and Allen Wikgren, The University of Chicago Press, 1950; Eroll F. Rhodes’s An Annotated List of Armenian New Testament Manuscripts, Tokyo, Ikeburo, 1959; The Bible and Modern Scholarship, (ed.) J. Phillip Hyatt, Abingdon Press, 1965.

This test is an examination of the textual transmission by which documents reach us.  In other words, since we do not have the original documents, how reliable are the copies we have in regard to the number of manuscripts (MSS), or handwritten copies, and the time interval between the original and extant (currently existing) copies?

F. E. Peters states that “on the basis of manuscript tradition alone, the works that made up the Christians’ New Testament (NT) were the most frequently copied and widely circulated books of antiquity.” (Peters, F. E. The Harvest of Hellenism. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971, pg. 50)  As a result, the fidelity of the NT text rests on a multitude of manuscript evidence. Counting Greek copies alone, the NT is preserved in some 5,686 partial and complete manuscript portions that were copied by hand from the second through the fifteenth centuries (Geisler, Norman L. and William E. Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago: Moody Press, 1986, pg. 385)

The table to the right summarizes these MSS as well as those we have from other (non-Greek) languages.  All told we have more that 25,000 manuscript copies of portions of the NT in existence today. No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation.  In comparison, Homer’s Iliad is second, with only 643 manuscripts that still survive.  The first complete preserved text of Homer dates from the thirteenth century. (Leach, Charles. Our Bible. How We Got It. Chicago: Moody Press, 1898, pg. 145)

The importance of the sheer number of manuscript copies cannot be overstated.  As with other documents of ancient literature, there are no known extant (currently existing) original manuscripts of the Bible (e.g., letters in Paul’s own handwriting).  However, the abundance of manuscript copies makes it possible to reconstruct the original with virtually complete accuracy. (Geisler, Norman L. and William E. Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago: Moody Press, 1986, pg. 386)  In the case of the NT, this could be compared to having 25,000 eyewitnesses to an event, the event in this case being the original texts.

John Warwick Montgomery says that “to be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament.” (Montgomery, John W. History and Christianity. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1964. pg. 29)

Sir Frederick G. Kenyon, who was the director and principal librarian of the British Museum and second to none in authority for issuing statements about MSS, states that

Besides number, the manuscripts of the New Testament differ from those of the classical authors….  In no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest extant manuscripts so short as in that of the New Testament.  The books of the New Testament were written in the latter part of the first century; the earliest extant manuscripts (trifling scraps excepted) are of the fourth century – say from 250 to 300 years later.  This may sound a considerable interval, but it is nothing to that which parts most of the great classical authors from their earliest manuscripts.  We believe that we have in all essentials an accurate text of the seven extant plays of Sophocles; yet the earliest substantial manuscript upon which it is based was written more that 1400 years after the poet’s death. (Kenyon, Frederick G. Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. London: Macmillan and Company, 1901, pg. 4)

Kenyon continues in The Bible and Archeology: “The interval between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has been removed.  Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.” (Kenyon, Frederick G. The Bible and Archeology. New York: Harper & Row, 1940, pg. 288)

In Josh McDowell's book, this goes on for another 10 pages, but you get the picture.

Internal Evidence Test

This is a very broad and detailed subject.  Here I will offer only a few considerations, but rest assured that there are many more where this came from.

He was known around the seminary as the man who had learned over thirty languages, most of them languages of Old Testament times in the Middle Eastern world. Dr. Gleason Archer, who taught for over thirty years at the graduate seminary level in the field of biblical criticism, gives the following modest description of his qualifications to discern the meaning of difficult biblical texts:

As an undergraduate at Harvard, I was fascinated by apologetics and biblical evidences; so I labored to obtain a knowledge of the languages and cultures that have any bearing on biblical scholarship.  As a classics major in college, I received training in Latin and Greek, also in French and German. At seminary I majored in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic; and in post-graduate years I became involved in Syriac and Akkadian, to the extent of teaching elective courses in each of these subjects.  Earlier, during my final two years of high school, I had acquired a special interest in Middle Kingdom Egyptian studies, which was furthered as I later taught courses in this field.  At the Oriental Institute in Chicago, I did specialized study in Eighteenth Dynasty historical records and also studied Coptic and Sumerian.  Combined with this work in ancient languages was a full course of training at law school, after which I was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1939.  This gave me a thorough grounding in the field of legal evidences.

Dr. Archer, in the forward to his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, gives this testimony about the internal consistency of the Bible:

As I have dealt with one apparent discrepancy after another and have studied the alleged contradictions between the biblical record and the evidence of linguistics, archaeology, or science, my confidence in the trustworthiness of Scripture has been repeatedly verified and strengthened by the discovery that almost every problem in Scripture that has ever been discovered by man, from ancient times until now, has been dealt with in a completely satisfactory manner by the biblical text itself—or else by objective archaeological information.  The deductions that may be validly drawn from ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, or Akkadian documents all harmonize with the biblical record; and no properly trained evangelical scholar has anything to fear from the hostile arguments and challenges of humanistic rationalists or detractors of any and every persuasions.

Dr. Archer concludes, “There is a good and sufficient answer in Scripture itself to refute every charge that has ever been leveled against it.  But this is only to be expected from the kind of book the Bible asserts itself to be, the inscripturation of the infallible, inerrant Work of the Living God.” (Archer, Gleason L., Jr. Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982, pg. 12)

There are many other excellent sources available for this section, but the following stands out.  Many liberal scholars are being forced to consider earlier dates for the New Testament’s original sources.  Dr. John A. T. Robinson, no conservative himself, comes to some startling conclusions in his groundbreaking book Redating the New Testament.  His research has led to his conclusion that the whole of the New Testament was written before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. (Robinson, John A. T. Redating the New Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976)

External Evidence Test

Do other historical materials confirm or deny the internal testimony provided by the documents themselves?  There are a number of extra-biblical sources that confirm the events and people of the New Testament.  Here are a few:

Christian sources

• Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History III.39, preserves writings of Papias, bishop of Heirapolis (AD 130)
• Irenaeus, Biship of Lyons (AD 180) Against Heresies III
• Clement of Rome (AD 95)
• Ignatius (AD 70-110)
• Polycarp (AD 70-156) a disciple of John; martyred for refusing to recant
• Tatian (AD 170)

Non-Christian sources

• Tacitus (first century Roman historian)
• Suetonius, chief secretary to Emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138)
• Josephus (AD 37-100) a Pharisee of the priestly line and Jewish historian working under Roman authority.  Probably the single most prominent extra-biblical, non-Christian source.
• Thallus (AD 52) as quoted by Julius Africanus (AD 221)
• Pliny the Younger (AD 112)
• Emperor Trajan (AD 112)
• The Talmud (AD 70-200)
• Lucian (2^nd century)
• Mara Bar-Serapion (late first and early third centuries)
• The Gospel of Truth (Gnostic gospel written perhaps by Valentinus AD 135-160)
• The Acts of Pontius Pilate (a missing document referred to  by Justin Martyr, AD 150, and Tertullian, AD 200)

Dr. Geisler summarizes the information to be gleaned from these sources:

The primary sources for the life of Christ are the four Gospels. However there are considerable reports from non-Christian sources that supplement and confirm the Gospel accounts.  These come largely from Greek, Roman, Jewish and Sameritan sources of the first century. In brief they inform us that:

1.     Jesus was from Nazareth;

2.     He lived a wise and virtuous life;

3.     He was crucified in Palestine under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar at Passover time, being considered the Jewish King;

4.     He was believed by his disciples to have been raised from the dead three days later;

5.     His enemies acknowledged that he performed unusual feats they called ‘sorcery’;

6.     His small band of disciples multiplied rapidly, spreading even as far a Rome;

7.     His disciples denied polytheism, lived moral lives, and worshiped Christ as Divine.

This picture confirms the view of Christ presented in the New Testament Gospels. (Geisler, Norman L. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998, pg. 384-385)

For Further Study

J. N. D. Anderson, Christianity: The Witness of History

F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, C. F. Cruse, trans.

Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews

Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, He Walked Among Us

G. Habermas, The Historical Jesus, chapter 9

Lucian of Samosata, The Works of Lucian of Samosata

Origen, Contra Celsus

Pliny the Younger, Letters. W. Melmoth, trans.

A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers

Suetonius, Life of Claudius

Suetonius, Life of Nero

Tacitus, Annals

A Final Quote on Archaeology:

Nelson Glueck, the renowned Jewish archaeologist, wrote: “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.  …the almost incredibly accurate historical memory of the Bible, and particularly so when it is fortified by archaeological fact.” (Glueck, Nelson. Rivers in the Desert: History of Negev. New York: Farrar, Stratus, and Cadahy, 1959, pg. 31)

Wrapping It Up
It is popular for critics of the Bible and the belief systems it chronicles to assert that the early adherents of these beliefs took poetic license over the years with these texts in order to achieve their religious ends.  The facts tell a different story.  Christians can stand tall on the books of the Bible with an assurance that they accurately reflect the original writings of their authors unpolluted by transmission through the ages.  Whether these authors ran fast and loose with the truth is another issue, but let's put to rest these ridiculous notions regarding inaccuracies due to the transmission of the scriptures over the years.