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Christianity holds that God took the initiative and chose to reveal Himself to humanity. This self-disclosure of God is the only way that we could know anything about Him. He is infinite; humans are finite. To know God requires that he reveal Himself to us.

Traditional Christianity has held that God has revealed himself to humanity in two fundamentally different ways. The first is through general revelation or God revealing himself through His created and natural world. This revelation is general in the sense that it is available to everyone at all times in all places. The second is through special revelation - special in the sense that it was given at special times, to special people, and in special places. Usually, God’s special revelation to man is thought to be through Scipture and the life of Jesus Christ on earth.

This teaching of two types of revelation has sometimes been called the “Two Books” doctrine, that is, God has “authored” two books to reveal himself to man - The figurative book of nature and the literal book of the Bible. A reformed confession of 1561 explains this concept further:

We know him by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God… Second, he makes himself known to us more openly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for his glory and for the salvation of his own.

A scriptural text supporting the concept of general and special revelation is found in Psalm 19:1-4, 7-11 (ESV):

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their measuring line goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world…

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the LORD are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

More on the two books… Next post.

BK at The Christian Cadre discusses (as part of a larger post on abortion) the abortion quadrilemma as presented by Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft. According to BK:

You begin with the question such as the following: “So, if we don’t know when life begins that makes it okay to kill something? Doesn’t that argue for not killing something until we’re sure?” Then you throw out an illustration to make the point cleearer. Picture a hunter who hears a rustling in the bush. The rustling could be an animal that he is licensed to hunt, and killing that animal would be perfectly legal and (setting aside the difficult moral issues that involve hunting of animals not for food) ethical. But what if the rustling in the bush is another hunter? It could be, but the hunter doesn’t know. Should he shoot before he’s sure it isn’t a human being? Obviously not. The law puts an obligation on us to not kill negligently.

The Quadrilemma is presented as four exhaustive options as to the status of the human fetus.
Option 1: The fetus is a human being and we know it for certain.
Option 2: The fetus is a human being and we do not know it for certain.
Option 3: The fetus is not a human being and we know it for certain.
Option 4: The fetus is not a human being and we do not know it for certain.

Option 1 would seem obvious to most that the fetus should not be killed. Options 2 and 4 are like the rustling in the bush and therefore abortion should be avoided. The only option which would allow for abortion is option 3. I’ve not heard an argument which shows that we can know for certain that the fetus is not a human being.

Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, has once again made clear his standings on the concept of human dignity. On Friday, 1/26/07, in a piece in the NY Times, while discussing the case of Ashley, a severely disable girl, he stated the following:

Here’s where things get philosophically interesting. We are always ready to find dignity in human beings, including those whose mental age will never exceed that of an infant, but we don’t attribute dignity to dogs or cats, though they clearly operate at a more advanced mental level than human infants. Just making that comparison provokes outrage in some quarters. But why should dignity always go together with species membership, no matter what the characteristics of the individual may be?

In his book, Practical Ethics, he opines:

The fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings… This conclusion is not limited to infants who, because of irreversible intellectual disabilities, will never be rational, self-conscious beings.

Singer’s views are considered radical by many and illicit outrage by some. I, of course, am among those who consider his viewpoint outrageous. However, I at least give him credit for being consistent with the argument supporting abortion.

In contrast to the view of Singer is the Christian view of human dignity. In the words of Al Mohler, whose blog alerted me to Singer’s comments:

Christians believe that every single human being possesses full human dignity because every human being is made in the image of God. A worldview that denies the existence of God and thus denies the reality of the image of God has to come up with some other explanation for human dignity — one that lacks essential dignity. Thus, in this worldview, the humans that are thought to deserve dignity are recognized as having it, while others are denied the same.

Richard Dawkins responded to a question of Phillip Johnson regarding how he knows that similarities in various creatures establishes common ancestry:

… the reason we know for certain we are all related, including bacteria, is the universality of the genetic code and other biochemical fundamentals. Philosophical commitment to materialism and reductionism is true, but I would prefer to characterize it as a philosophical commitment to real explanation as opposed to complete lack of explanation, which is what you espouse.

First of all, that universal genetic code is not truly universal. But more importantly, biochemical similarities do not prove common ancestry. Dawkins did not reach the conclusion of common ancestry based on scientific experimentation and observation. He did so on the basis of his “philosophical commitment to materialsim and reductionism”. Biochemical similarities are an observation that is made about the world around us. How do we account for those similarities? Is common ancestry the only answer? No! Similarities may be evidence of a common ancestry, but may just as reasonably be evidence of a common designer. How does one decide between the two? The answer is given on the basis of philosophy and not by science. Johnson rightly concludes:

By appealing to the philosophical question of what constitutes a real explanation, Dawkins had conceded that the fundamental question was outside of the professional domain of biology. Of course, materialist reductionists want a reductionist explanation of everything, but that is merely a subjective preference with which neither philosophers nor citizens in general have any obligation to agree.

I have recently listened to a series of lectures called “The Concerto” and am now listening to a series called “The Symphony”. Both series of lectures discuss the work of Beethoven. There are certain characteristics which may be found in the various symphonies of Beethoven. Since all nine symphonies of Beethoven share common musical characterisics, it is obvious that these symphonies had no composer. Right? Of course not, we immediately see the faulty reasoning in reaching such a conclusion. Observed similarities require interpretation. Philosophy provides the framework within which to reach conclusions about those similarities. Scientific naturalism is limited and hamstrung in its efforts to reach the truth because the most obvious explanation is ruled out a priori. Intelligent Design is open to all possibilities and follows the evidence where it may lead.

Yesterday, I provided several quotes from experts and others concerning the implications of the findings of the human genome. There was an obvious disagreement about the signficance of the resulting research. Why do two equally trained scientists look at the findings and differ over the meanings? Furthermore, why is there not vigorous debate in the scientific community over whether the appearance of design is real or illusory, and how biology bears on the proposition that all men are created equal, have certain rights by nature of that fact, and are superior to all other forms of life? These are important societal and cultural questions.

Phillip E. Johnson, in The Right Questions, answers this question by claiming that the intellectual culture of our time enforces a dichotomy between “belief” and “knowledge” and between “faith” and “reason” which makes it almost impossible to ask the right questions. Science is thought to give “knowledge” while religion only provides “beliefs”. Scientific reason is contrasted with religious faith, which modern society takes to be belief withoutreasons. Following this same logic, science has an a priori commitment to explaining all phenomena in terms of natural causes only. This, in theory, leaves open the possibiility that the vast, complex information contained in the genetic code is due to an intelligent mind. However, in practice, this will not be conceded because this implies giving up on science and embracing ignorance. Johnson states:

Because philosophical naturalism is thus incorporated in the very definition of science, most biologists think it is as much a scientific fact that the genome is the product of natural causes alone as it is that DNA is composed of organic chemicals.

Scott C. Todd explained in a letter to Nature:

Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.

I must say that I grew up in a state of naivete regarding science. I always assumed that science was interested at getting at the truth about our natural world. It turns out that science is not committed to the best explanation of the data and observations, but is instead committed to a philosophical worldview called naturalism. Integrity demands that the so-called “experts” go where the evidence leads. Integrity, unfortunately, is today sacrificed at the altar of naturalism.

In The Right Questions, Phillip E. Johnson, states that when President Clinton announced the first substantial success of the human genome project in June of 2000, recognizing the many tangled ethical issues which would be raised by understanding the genome better, attempted to reassure the nation by stating that…

as we consider how to use these new discoveries, we must also not retreat from our oldest and most cherished human values… All of us are created equal, entitled to equal treatment under the law.

He also said…

… today, we are learning the language in which God created life; we are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift.

Dr. Francis S. Collins, the scientific director of the Human Genome Project, similarly claimed:

It is humbling for me and awe-inspiring to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God.

Collins’ words remind me of Keppler’s exclamation of praise and awe that by understanding the heavens he was able to bring glory to God. At face value, it would seem that the genome research actually supports the view that a supernatural mind designed the instructions which brought about complex life. Why is it, then, that many biologists and other scientists emphatically deny that God had anything to do with the existence of complex life on earth. Dr. David Baltimore wrote concerning the genome project that…

our genes look very much like those of fruit flies, worms and even plants… we are all descended from the same humble beninnings (which)… should be, but won’t be the end of creationism.

Another scientist stated that the President’s reference to a language in which God created life…

could not be further from the truth. (And that it)… give(s) more ammunition to creationists to further their destructive social and political agenda.

On the other hand, another scientist, Gene Myers claimed:

What really astounds me is the architecture of life. The system is extremely complex. It’s like it was designed… There’s a huge intelligence there. I don’t see that as being unscientific. Others may, but not me.

Why the differing opinions? I’ll tackle that in my next post.

I have recently completed reading Dogmatics in Outline, by Karl Barth. I found it to be both insightful and moving. Here is one such passage:

‘He who from eternity willed to become man for our good, has become man in time for our good, will be and remain man in eternity for our good’ - that is, Jesus Christ. The English novelist, Dorothy L. Sayers, who has recently turned to theology with remarkable interest, has described in a pamphlet how unheard-of , how strange, how ‘interesting’ the narrative is of the fact that God became man. Imagine for a moment this story being one day put in the papers! It really is a sensational story, more sensational than anything else. And that is the centre of Christianity, this infinitely surprising thing, that never existed before and cannot be repeated.

At all times there have been combinations of these two concepts, God and man. The idea of incarnation is not alien to mythology. But the thing that distinguishes the Christian message from this idea is that ll myths are basically just the exposition of an idea, of a general truth. A myth circles round the relation between day and night, winter and spring, death and life; it always implies a timeless reality. The message of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with this myth; it is formally distinguished from it by its possessing the unique historical conception that it is said of an historical human being that it happened in His existence that God was made man, that consequently His existence was identical with the existence of God. The Christian message is a historical message. And only by seeing eternity and time together, God and man, only then do we grasp what is expressed by the name Jesus Christ.

One way a prosecuting attorney attempts to convict the defendant is by discrediting his story by finding contradictions and discrepancies in his account of the events surrounding the crime. In like manner, many have attempted to discredit the story of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth by pointing to claimed contradictions in the four gospel accounts. All four gospels report that Mary Magdalene was one of the women who went to the tomb on the morning of the resurrection. Luke mentions Joanna, although the other gospels do not. Mark adds Salome, but she is not mentioned in the other gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include Mary, Jesus’ mother, but John does not mention her. Couldn’t these guys get their stories straight? Is this evidence that these passages are unreliable?

Below are the four pertinent passages from each gospel:

And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles (Luke 24:8-10 ESV)

There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. (Mark 15:40-41 ESV)

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” (John 20:1-2 ESV)

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. (Matthew 28:1 ESV)

Upon closer inspection these claimed contradictions are not contradictions at all. Luke specifically states that other unnamed women were present at the tomb. Mark mentions other unnamed women present at the crucifixion. John only mentions Mary Magdalene, but uses the plural “we”, obviously implying other women present. Accounts which do not provide identical information are not necessarily contradictory. It is not as if one gospel writer claims Mary Magdalene was there, while another claims she was absent. Additionally, no one claims that there were “only two” present.

In conclusion, three of the four gospel writers make it abundantly clear that it was not their purpose to provide an exhaustive list of the women’s names who were at the tomb. There is no real contradiction present upon closer scrutiny.

Christians are often portrayed as being irrational for holding certain beliefs, including the existence of God. The “new atheists”, such as Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris have recently increased their efforts to paint Christians in this unflattering light. Are these accusations of irrationality warranted, however? I will confess at the beginning that I have met many irrational Christians. Additionally, I must also confess to having met many irrational non-theists. The question here, however, is – Is it rational to believe in God? I hold that it is.

What does it mean for a belief to be rational? Rationality might be generally understood to be a quality of a belief which is in accord with reason and is usually associated with a belief likely to lead to the truth. Reason, in turn, is that faculty that allows us to think and deliberate, to evaluate propositions and arrive at proper conclusions. I contend that believing in God is rational because there are good arguments which support that belief. Do not misunderstand my claim. I do not claim to prove the existence of God; merely, to show that it is rational to do so. There are many strong rational arguments which support the belief in the existence of God.

Perhaps the best way to understand the rationality of theism is by considering this belief as the inference to the best explanation of the observations. Given our moral intuitions, the order, information and fine-tuning found in the universe, and further that the universe even exists at all, not only is theism a rational belief, but perhaps the most rational inference is theism. Theism has explanatory power whose claims resonate with our intuitions about the way the world really is.

John Mark Reynolds, at Middlebrow, has a post discussing the consequences of losing the conflict in Iraq. Many voices across America have been calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Reynolds submits 3 laws which provide insight into possible outcomes if that withdrawal actually were to take place. He supports these laws with examples from previous military encounters. Here are the three laws:

1. The failure of the West will be worse for the people we fail than for the West.

2. Failure will eventually lead to a bigger confrontation.

3. A horrible Empire will eventually fill any gaps left by Western retreat.

All reasons not to pull out of Iraq prematurely.