The Problem with Lateral Converts

By "lateral convert" I mean someone who moves from one branch of Christianity to another: Catholics who become Protestants (and vice versa), Protestants or Catholics who become Orthodox (and vice versa again), and so on. I may explain my own view of ecclesiology at some point, but for now I'll just say that I consider the main groups just mentioned valid forms of Christianity; I just don't consider any of them the One True Church.

Anyway, my own background is Protestant--Evangelical and Pentecostal, in fact--but I make a point of learning from other Christians. My theology is actually closer to Eastern Orthodox than Protestant in many ways, and I have studied Catholic and Orthodox positions as well as those of other Protestant groups. Within Protestantism, my best match would probably be a conservative Methodist group.

End of disclosure.

The problem is that in studying these various groups, I tend to run into converts from some other group who have gone the True Believer route. (Note: I am not a particular fan of Hoffer's, though some of his points are valid.) This is particularly annoying when one of them starts pontificating about what some group, usually the one he left, believes.

They are typically wrong.

This leads to an observation: the lateral converts I've encountered (personally or through media) tend to be ignorant of the beliefs they left behind. The Catholics-turned-Protestant I've met have been remarkably ignorant of Catholic doctrine. The Protestants-turned-whatever regularly demonstrate abysmal ignorance of Protestant views, often lumping very different groups together.

Even the scholars goof. I've recently encountered people who ought to know better claiming that the Protestant idea of "sola fides" (salvation by faith alone) meant a rejection of works of any kind: just believe you're saved; you don't have to live out your salvation. But anyone familiar with Protestantism can trace the opposite view easily, from Philipp Melancthon ("Sola fides iustificat, sed fides non est sola"--"Faith alone justifies, but faith is not alone") to the modern idea that "if you're gonna talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk." And I frequently hear Protestants claim that Catholics (more rarely Orthodox) believe in salvation by works. (Properly speaking, they don't.)

Nicodemus asked the Sanhedrin, "Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?" (John 7:51) It's still a good question--even if you're talking about the group you left.

Illogical, Doctor...

A recent thread on a certain list gave me a Star Trek flashback--specifically to the countless times Spock would make some remark about logic (or its lack) that actually appealed to common sense. For as a rule, Spock's "logic" wasn't logician's logic but simply "what seems sensible to me based on assumptions I'm not about to publicize."

Okie-dokie.

Anyway, this sort of logic is alive and well, especially in politics. In this case the topic was initially Polish radio, but it wandered:

Interesa demando....mi ankaŭ scivolis pri la logiko, sed verŝajne logiko ne ĉiam dominas. Vidu: en Usono ni ankoraŭ ne akceptis la metran sistemon, kaj multaj homoj dubas pri la fakto de evolucio.

Interesting question....I also was curious about the logic, but probably logic doesn't always win out. Look, in the US we still didn't accept [should be "ne akceptAs"--don't accept] the metric system, and many people doubt the fact of evolution.

This is sensibility as perceived by the speaker, not logic as such. As Devil's Advocate I could observe that

1a. The sole advantages of the metric system are that it's decimal and interlocked. Earlier measurement systems arose separately as needed, and they did so before we decided to focus on one numerical base. Even the metric system allows for non-metric time, for that matter: a metric minute doesn't have 100 seconds.

1b. The metric system is based largely on abstractions (e.g., the size of the earth) that are outside common experience, whereas the quantities found in earlier systems were everyday matters, such as the length of the average stride or the distance from elbow to fingertip. It's good to standardize measures, but perhaps at a gut level, resistance to metric comes from the impression that it's unnatural in its bases.

2a. "Evolution" is such an ambiguous word I wish it would be abolished. Stellar and planetary evolution are similar, but they have practically nothing in common with biological evolution. Different terms should be used.

2b. Even granting that we're talking about biological evolution--I suppose we are; it's the one most likely to excite this kind of short-sighted snobbery--there is the difference between evolution as science and evolution as history. To say that something is scientifically possible is not to say that it has in fact occurred in a given case. Is evolution scientifically possible? I don't know; it's outside my field. I do see potential problems, but the question is far more complex (given the number of scientific fields that must be not just consulted but mastered at expert level) than most people realize, whether they be for or against the idea. A paleontologist likely knows too little about genetics, ecology, physiology, and several other topics than he needs to know before pontificating. That's why I'm skeptical. The degree of knowledge required to construct a unified field theory of physics would be trivial by comparison: at least the numerous topics involved would be more closely related.

2c. Even granting that biological evolution can occur, the question remains whether it did occur in our case. And the strongest rational claim that could be made (again assuming that biological evolution is possible) would be that evolution appeared to fit the available data. And that gets into metaphysical and theological issues. Do we trust appearances? Do we rule out divine intervention? (Intelligent Design, as previously noted, is not actually opposed to evolution and does not require miracles.) Nor are we faced with an absolute either/or: What if everything was created specially but evolution has operated since then?

The moral of the story is that humility is a good thing. It's good to admit that we don't know it all, and it's valuable to realize that people we disagree with are not therefore idiots. They may show themselves idiots in other ways, but offending our sense of "logic"--of what is sensible according to our metaphysical prejudices--is not enough.

Sciolism, Scientism, and Theology

So what does it matter if people go off half-cocked? We've been making decisions based on incomplete and faulty information since the Garden of Eden, which I guess helps answer the question. But now, in addition to mere ignorance parading as knowledge, we add the tendency toward a falsely scientific view of life.

I noticed some time ago that in Christian circles (especially Fundamentalist Protestant ones, but you can easily find it elsewhere) there was a tendency to reduce everything to a formula. Most of the supposedly non-fiction books in a Christian bookstore have a formula for success, effective prayer, weight loss, or whatever else. Even theologically we tend toward formulas, though that's been around for centuries.

It's curious that the Bible is low on formulas. About the closest you get is in the Law, and even it isn't truly formulaic. But the formula mindset can be found quite easily: it's the attempt to reduce God and our interactions with him to scripts. Push the right buttons, and you get what you want.

It should be obvious that this is magic: an attempt to manipulate God into doing our will. But there's more to it than that--something even more damnable. Not only is it an attempt to get our own way and assert our will over God's, it also implies rejecting grace.

Earning your own salvation is thoroughly formula-based: do the right works, and you are saved. From the standpoint of scientism, earning your salvation is a good idea, because there's a clear cause-effect relationship. Good deeds eventually outweigh bad ones, so you just keep going until you're saved.

But what of grace? Grace is a miracle: it upsets the cause-effect chain, saying that bad deeds may simply be forgiven, and without our somehow earning that forgiveness. Is it any wonder that when Creation Science writers wander into theology they tend to reduce it to simplistic formulas?

They also like to sanitize messy people: Noah didn't mean to get drunk; in the antediluvian world, grape juice didn't ferment. They have quite a long presentation with the sole point of getting Noah off the hook. But why? Why not just admit that he was yet another sinner and goofed up? (For that matter, why make drinking wine a sin? It isn't one in the Bible.)

The annoyingly obvious answer is that they don't really believe in grace. They believe in excuses, even far-fetched ones, to avoid admitting that God used and blessed a sinner. Admitting it would violate the tidy cause-effect sequence and acknowledge a miracle—which the Creation Science people are no more eager to do than atheists.

God does miracles; get over it. And salvation is a walk, not a formula.

Scientific Sciolism

Oh, look it up.

I talked about syncretism last time, and I don't think anyone can deny that at least in the West, having "science" on one's side pretty much guarantees intellectual respectability and superiority. This is why most of the global warming debate hinges on who is actually scientific, the believers or deniers, and why some people think they must have a scientific basis for accepting Genesis. Not having a scientific basis for one's views is intellectually untenable.

But together with this deification of "science" (often misunderstood and incorrectly identified) we have normal human sciolism: the tendency to think we know it all (or at least enough to pontificate) based on only a shallow acquaintance with a topic. So in the global warming debate we see people on both sides who are merely parroting arguments and putative facts they agree with but probably don't understand. I was amazed and impressed a while back when a columnist for a local newspaper admitted that he hadn't done enough research on the topic to have a worthwhile opinion--and he also claimed that such research would amount to setting aside a few years to master the topic. Reading a few blogs and newspaper articles isn't enough.

Years ago, there was a man named Immanuel Velikovsky who tried to explain various historical and legendary events (including some from the Exodus) by invoking a kind of celestial pinball game in which the earth got nailed a few times. Back in the sixties and seventies there was a noticeable Velikovskyist contingent in the Creation Science ranks, because he believed in catastrophism and was ostracized from mainline scientific circles, much like the Creation Science crowd itself.

But the interesting point is that Velikovsky was a psychiatrist, not a physicist, astronomer, biologist, or archeologist: he was pontificating well outside his field of competence, and doing so quite convincingly. An astronomer and a biologist read Worlds in Collision and came to opposite conclusions: the astronomer thought the astronomy was nonsense but the biochemistry brilliant, while the biologist laughed at the biochemistry but found the astronomy impressive.

Sciolism times three: an author who was out of his depth yet persuasive, and two men who were safe from the hoax in their respective areas of expertise but gullible elsewhere. If you've ever read Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, you get the impression that there were few pseudoscientific scams of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that did not snooker at least one of the Huxleys--a very intelligent and well-educated group. But they, too, were willing to gamble on their sometimes shallow knowledge--and sometimes they lost.

The relevant moral here involves a point I've made before concerning what I call "scientific apologetics": we read a book (or several) making a number of scientific claims we haven't the background to appraise intelligently and feel that we understand more about the topic than those who do have the requisite background.

This is why I largely ignore the putative science of Creation Science: I don't have the background required to assess it. In the same way, evolution is a sprawling concern, touching a number of different fields. I strongly doubt anyone knows enough about it to understand it and assess it, pro or con. I certainly don't. I can, however, comment on the philosophical and theological implications of Creation Science, just as I can spot an evolutionist with a scientific background going outside his field to pontificate on theology or philosophy.

Avoid sciolists lest you become one yourself.

I'll conclude this series next time with a post about how sciolism and scientism combine to corrupt popular theology.

Science, Faith, and Syncretism

Syncretism means mixing belief systems. In the Old Testament we read of people worshipping both God and Baal, for example. These days we do much the same thing, only the other "god" is usually Money, Popularity, Respectability, or something like that. The idea I mentioned last time, that there must be a scientific explanation to support Genesis, is such a case. Unless God jumps through the hoop of our personal expectations, we just won't believe in him.

So there!

I still don't see why Creation is any different from the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection, neither of which gets the imprimatur of science. If God wants to commit a miracle now and then, we can either rely on him to be telling the truth or rely on our amazing fallen minds to find an alternative explanation. This is the major reason I consider Creation Science dangerous on theological grounds: since the goal is to find a cause-and-effect sequence to explain miracles, it tends to deny or minimize miracles on the one hand and support a mechanistic view of God on the other.

Case in point: the Flood. In order to explain where all the water came from, proponents of Creation Science usually conjure up a vapor canopy nowhere attested in scripture and have the earth's crust upthrust, downthrust, and sidewaysthrust without ever generating a really good dance step. I, on the other hand, just figure that if God wants enough water to flood the whole planet, he can just call it into existence. It's called a miracle, and no, I can't make a science out of it.

So what if the science happens to be right anyway--what if God used a vapor canopy without mentioning it? Occam's razor, friend: the vapor-canopy explanation is complex; a miracle is simple. Nor is that always true: quite often positing a miracle is a needless complication. Just not here.

This need for an acceptable mechanism leads in worse directions, though. For example, it is Law-oriented rather than Grace-oriented. Earning your salvation by good works is simple cause and effect; it's a kind of science. Accepting salvation by faith that has been granted by grace is miraculous thinking: it's simply not good cause and effect, because it doesn't provide a good way to manipulate God.

C. S. Lewis talked about this in The Abolition Of Man: science and magic tend to be different ways of gaining power over nature (and thus God) by reducing it to rules you can manipulate. This is the reason the Creation Science crowd doesn't like miracles (beyond the fact they aren't acceptable to the scientific establishment): miracles confer no manipulative power. We can't use them to get what we want; we can't make them happen whenever we feel like it.

That's also why I don't really care about the scientific claims of Creation Science: if they were presented with proper rigor, I couldn't understand them, much less judge their validity, but if they are presented in a looser, more popular style, even a scientist in relevant field couldn't assess the data. So I stick with the theological ramifications--a topic friends and enemies both seem to ignore.

Next up: sciolism.

Science, Faith, and Miracles

I'm currently involved in yet another vigorous exchange of views with a friend who apparently has no choice other than Creation Science on the one hand and loss of faith on the other. Creation Science, he says, allows him to disbelieve evolution and thus to believe Genesis.

I admit I don't get it myself.

We agree that evolution and Genesis don't get on well together. I've seen attempts to harmonize them, and those attempts amount to wishful thinking. They also usually involve effectively dismissing those parts of Genesis that seem inconvenient.

But I disagree that cobbling together a "science" is the only way to "save" Genesis. Bear in mind that science is a system of generalizations about what usually happens and why. And consider that science (indeed, the humbler Everyday Experience) tells us that virgins don't get pregnant without changing their status and that dead people don't get better after a few days in a tomb.

In other words, if we must have a scientific alternative (Creation Science) to evolution, we must have a scientific alternative (Virgin Birth Science) to conception and another (Resurrection Science) to postmortem decay. For without such alternatives, we must follow science rather than scripture, apparently, and these doctrines will be lost.

But science is about what usually happens--pretty much always, in fact. And the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection were one-time events, though to be sure the latter presages a much more widespread repeat. In other words, they were miracles, and because miracles are abnormal, they can't be generalized into science.

So what about Creation? Does the opening of Genesis happen a lot? Not so far as we can tell. It's characterized by God speaking and things happening. In other words, it's a miracle. But that means it can't be made into a science.

And that should be okay. The alternative is to say that there are no miracles, which is not something a Christian can agree with. But it suggests a syncretism--a mixture of proper belief with outside views--that is common and troubling. I'll hit that next, all going well.

Return of the Judaizers

The recent comment about Jesus' so-called original teaching is a matter for concern, though I'd rather not spend much time on it just now. C. S. Lewis said that human nature is constantly moving from one extreme to the other, and having spent far too long despising anything Jewish, some people have gone the other way and now worship anything Jewish.

The middle ground isn't that hard to find. The Old Testament remains vital reading for Christians, because it gives the context of the New Testament. Without it, the New Testament is meaningless and without foundation. Further, much that we find in the early Church, including the term for church itself, ekklesia (= "assembly"), has Jewish origins. Ignoring these facts leads to folly.

On the other hand, Judaism itself has changed considerably since the time of Christ. I have seen references to Jesus wearing a tallit, for example, which is a neat trick considering that they didn't arise until centuries later. From an OT perspective, covering the head was a sign of mourning--David fleeing Absalom (2 Sam 15:30--13:19 may also be an example) and Est 6:12 (though here it's Haman[!] who is our example). In the NT, Paul says that a man who is praying or prophesying should not cover his head (1 Cor 11:4, 7), and he seems to consider this obvious: there is no hint that he is disagreeing with the normal Jewish practice of the day. So some people back-read a modern practice into biblical times and misunderstandings arise.

Then there's the matter of considering non-Christian Jewish sources authoritative. In 2 Cor 3:13–16, Paul deals with this: when an unsaved Jew (probably anyone unsaved—2 Cor 4:3–4) reads the Law, he can't understand it properly; only in Christ is truth revealed. You can learn a lot from unsaved experts, but you must always remember that you're dealing with someone at least partly blind.

But the recent comment goes beyond such incautious blunders: the group in question effectively believes that Jesus did not come to establish a new covenant, because the old laws remain in place. Indeed, they ignore the argument of Heb 7:12--there has come a change of priesthood and therefore of law. They may bring up Mat 5:17-19, where Jesus claims that he has come to fulfill the Law rather than destroy it, and that the Law will remain until everything has been fulfilled. But since he came to fulfill it, he either did so or failed; and if he fulfilled the Law, its purpose has been accomplished, and a new covenant may be introduced. Rejecting the new covenant robs Jesus' life, death, and resurrection of their meaning; it marks a return to the first major heresy in Christianity: the Judaizers.

That's about all I'll say on the topic at the moment, though I'm sure I'll have to revisit it. Just indulge some healthy skepticism about wild (and often contentious) claims. You can usually pick up what kind of spirit and wisdom (Jam 3:13–17) they're using. Also remember what C. S. Lewis said about those who attack Christianity: they usually claim to accept what Jesus said while attacking Paul's teaching, but if you look carefully, it's really Jesus' teaching they're attacking. They just think Paul is a safer target. That's cowardice—and hypocrisy. Such people refute themselves.

If all goes well, I should resume some overdue reviews and get back to Dark World in short order—in fact, I'll probably intersperse them a bit.

A Double Standard?

A friend of mine showed me his magnum opus of the moment. He's a fairly new writer, and it has the marks of the newbie. For example, there's a place where a pastor is explaining Life, the Universe, and Everything to a genuine Seeker. Ignoring the fact that it's set up as a showcase for the writer's interest in apologetics, there is a spot that seemed a little extra over the top.

I begin to see that a lot of would-be writers (and even a few who've arrived) have trouble with logical sequencing. In this case, the arguments are presented in no particular order, and sometimes a remark will contradict something said elsewhere. (In fairness, a lot of this stems from hasty editing: it's easy to assume that you can change something at one point without introducing conflicts elsewhere, but that's not the way it usually turns out.)

So the pastor jumps into an argument against Evilution (not so spelled, but that's the idea) without any warning or cogency. I pointed out that the question was properly not Creation vs. Evolution, but Design vs. Chance. The writer proceeded to equate Evilution and Chance, which is often true but not logically necessary. Yet even that is only the tip of the iceberg.

The pastor simply claims that there is no evidence whatever for evolution, that the fossil record does not substantiate it at all, and so forth, even to the cliché about a tornado converting a junkyard into an airliner. And for some reason the Seeker, though supposedly intelligent and apparently somewhat skeptical at other points, simply believes him.

Now consider: if a scientist, such as Stephen Hawking, pontificates about theoretical physics, I'll give him the benefit of any doubt: it's his field, not mine. But when Hawking wanders into theological matters and starts expounding his views, as C. S. Lewis used to say, he's no longer speaking as a professional scientist but as an amateur theologian, and in that field my credentials are at least as good as his. I am not overawed.

But if it's arrogant nonsense for a scientist with no theological background to pronounce on theological matters, why is it acceptable (to many Christians, at least) for a pastor with no discernible scientific background to pronounce on scientific matters?

This is why I seldom bother with scientific refutations of evolution: they are out of my field, and it's not appropriate for me to use them. On the other hand, the people who originate them sometimes wander into my field (language, the Bible, etc.), and their performance there is generally poor enough not to inspire any trust elsewhere. We could use a bit more caution along those lines.

The people whom we tend to cite and whose ideas we accept uncritically are Christians, but that doesn't make them right. They may be mistaken or even misled by their own biases. And since I'm not in a position to assess their claims and ideas properly, I won't use them--especially since my audience almost certainly can't assess them properly either.

And that means I'm needn't give Hawking, Dawkins, et al. equal time to avoid being a hypocrite.

Apologetics by the Book

From a Biblical standpoint, there are only two kinds of apologetics: scriptural and experiential.

Scriptural Apologetics seeks to prove the Gospel from Scripture itself. Paul (Acts 13:26-41, 17:2-3, etc.), Apollos (Acts 18:28), and many others did this. The drawback is that the person you're dealing with must accept the Scriptures as authoritative, and these days even a lot of branches of Judaism are too figurative in their readings for that to work. Similarly, it doesn't usually work well with cultists. In fact, it's most powerful with people who haven't considered the Gospel; many Jews and cultists have already had their mind closed by their superiors and peers. It's not hopeless, but the field isn't as open as in the first century.

Experiential Apologetics seeks to prove (or perhaps I should say "validate") the Gospel by an appeal to experience. There are several branches of this method:

1. Testimony. A classic. It's harder to counter a testimony than an argument. Just saying, "I saw this" is quite powerful: it's the frame of the earliest evangelistic messages, and the one Paul himself resorted to when faced with people who weren't open to Scriptural proof. This is unique in that it shares a personal experience with others. The remaining types attempt to give the audience an experience of their own.

2. Miracles. Sometimes called "Power Evangelism" today, this uses a miracle to open the door for the Gospel. The miracle becomes a personal experience for those who witness it. This method is used throughout Acts and Jesus' own ministry. I won't bother arguing that this is still an option; you accept it or you don't. If you don't, skip this.

3. Holiness. This is a form of miracle: it involves spending enough time with God (not with other Christians or with praise music, but waiting on the Lord) that his holiness rubs off. You live in a way impossible for the unsaved, and even when you goof up, it's obviously an exception, and you get right back to walking with God. Again, this provides an experience to others. Holiness is probably the best method, because it relies on God's power. But the price is too high, apparently.

4. Argumentation. This is the method used by such people as Augustine, Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer. It leads others to the personal experience of epiphany, first intellectual and then spiritual. There are two main sub-types:

a. Thin end of the wedge. Begin with an easily-proved abstraction, such as "There must be an objective moral standard, because we all know that some things are right or wrong in themselves." (See Mere Christianity for this approach.) It is experiential, because in invokes shared experiences and perceptions.

b. Thick end of the wedge. Similar, but focused on finding what Schaeffer called "the point of tension": the place where an unchristian view self-destructs by requiring people to do or believe things that are impossible. For example, no sane person can behave consistently as though he were merely an animal; his humanity will eventually assert itself. This is also experiential, because it involves living out the implications of a view.

It's worth contrasting these with modern apologetics.

Eschatological Apologetics. This seems like Scriptural Apologetics, but it isn't. Scriptural Apologetics assumes the validity of Scripture; Eschatological Apologetics attempts to prove Scripture. Moreover,

1. Scriptural Apologetics involves fulfilled prophecy, not unfulfilled, because it focuses on Jesus as the fulfillment.

2. Scriptural Apologetics focuses on Jesus, not on sensational events. In fact, all healthy apologetics focuses on Jesus, just as Christianity proper does. Even the argument type of Experiential Apologetics leads to Jesus, though sometimes in a roundabout way, and it does so through the everyday, not the sensational.

Scientific Apologetics. This is almost Experiential Apologetics without the experience. It also attempts to validate Scripture--something the early Christians didn't appear interested in--by means of esoteric arguments a layman can't follow, unlike the everyday-experience arguments of the Experiential method. Examples include Creation Science and related matters such as the Shroud of Turin. Intelligent Design is a modern version of classical Experiential Apologetics and thus borrows heavily from it.

Conclusion: A Biblical Apologetics
We need to return to our sources. We're trying to prove Scripture by appeals to other (and presumably higher) authorities such as science, and we're degrading the true authority. That can't be good. While Lewis and Schaeffer helped renew interest in argument, many of their self-proclaimed followers are just repeating words they don't fully understand. Argument requires thought, and few are up to the challenge. Miracles can become mere sensationalism, testimony a kind of bragging, and a show of holiness just hypocrisy. Doing these things right requires humility, time, and dedication; we'd rather go the sensational route with appeals to science we don't understand and prophecy passages we probably have never read in context.

And all the time God is wanting us to come outside of these little dungeons so we can call others to join us.

MindFlights 3: Neutrality is not an option

So roughly half of the available stories for MindFlights are worthwhile, in my opinion, but only one or two are noticeably Christian. That's fairly common these days, which is a solid-gold clue that something's wrong.

Historically, we have been the counter-culture. Even Balaam figured that out concerning Israel: "From the rocky peaks I see them, from the heights I view them. I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations." (Num 23:9).

Compare Paul:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. (2 Cor 6:14-7:1)

That doesn't mean abandoning the field entirely, but we should stop playing catch-up with the world. We should innovate and let them copy if they can. And one of our standards should be Php 4:8--"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." (That would probably clear out even a Christian bookstore pretty fast.) I should mention that the Greek does not refer to thinking about such things from time to time but constantly--these are the things we are to dwell on. You are what you read.

Does that mean we should read only Christian work? No; there is worthwhile material even in pagan sources. Paul quoted pagan writers on various occasions.

Does it mean that we should only write tracts on getting saved? Again, no. Read the New Testament carefully: how many "Steps to Salvation" pieces do you find?

And the Christian nature of a spec fic story is far more important than for any other type. Why? Because even if a mystery or romance is filled with atheists and Satanists, it still takes place (more or less) in the real world, so whatever the characters' opinions, we know that God is there.

But in spec fic, we are dealing with another world, perhaps one without God. Many writers turn to spec fic precisely so they can have a godless universe. And while it was possible in Lewis' day and Tolkien's to let the writer's mindset do the work, that was a different world too. Back then people were more likely to get a biblical reference or take a hint. At this point we are so muddled with soundbites about cultures and religions we have no deep knowledge of any of them--not even our own. Indirection and subtlety no longer work.

So what's the alternative? Some publishers think that if you pursue unabashed Christianity, people will tune you out. Some will. But I think you'll find that most people are curious about what we believe, and our spin-sick world longs for someone who is candid about his beliefs. If you can mention those beliefs naturally in the course of a story--not forcing them in for no good reason, but letting them occur naturally--I doubt most people will object.

But neutrality is impossible. One of the things that bothered me about Wayfarer's Journal was a remark on the site about the desirability of writing fiction where one's faith was no more central than the color of one's eyes. In other words, it shouldn't matter at all. This is an increasingly common view: the attempt to sink to the lowest common denominator, to put the lamp under the basket. Jesus said, "So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (Rev 3:16)

Pick a side!

Other CSFF Blogs on the tour:
Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Jackie Castle
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Kameron M. Franklin
Beth Goddard
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Michael Heald
Christopher Hopper
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Terri Main
Margaret
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Pamela Morrisson
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Rachelle
Ashley Rutherford
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Rachelle Sperling
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Linda Wichman
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

The Appalling Alternative

Paul's own view of evangelism and of the Gospel is straightforward: rely on the power of God, not human gimmicks. Let's review 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:5 again:

1:17--If in preaching the Gospel we rely on human wisdom (and scientific proof is a form of human wisdom), we are emptying the cross of Christ of its power. Do we really want to do that?
1:18-31--Those who reject the Gospel will consider it foolishness anyway; it is part of God's judgment on intellectual pride. If an intellectual is seeking God and asks an honest question, it is reasonable to answer it. This is one of the valid uses of apologetics. But we do not "prove" the Gospel.
2:1-5--We do not use human means and arguments to convince people; we simply display the power of God to them, so they will rely on God, not on Man.

Now, some may be frightened by the idea of evangelizing through God's power, because it sounds sensational in its own right: What do we do--heal the sick and raise the dead? Well, if that's how God uses you, yes; but for most of us, it involves living supernaturally. When we love other people no matter what they do to us, when we put others first and generally exhibit a Christlike character, this will provoke wonder and praise to God from those who watch us (Matthew 5:14-16 [good works]; John 13:35 [mutual love]; 1 Peter 3:1-2 [godly conduct], among many others). People who do these things consistently from the heart (rather than ocassionally and legalistically) are supernaturally empowered by God; they are the type of witnesses he wants.

Will we do this? Most of us will not; it is easier to memorize a few factoids than to let God radically change our hearts so that our very lives testify to his existence and power. And we can take credit for studying all these obscure topics! Sometimes, instead of emphasizing the treasure of God placed in our clay jars (2 Corinthians 4:7), we polish up the jars. Jesus said we should clean up the inside rather than just polish the outside (Luke 11:39-41).

Unfortunately the trend is toward spectacular teachings and away from the ones Jesus considered useful or even vital. We spend more time on eschatology and sensational proofs of scripture than on actually reading the Bible and letting the Holy Spirit apply it to our lives. I would suggest that we need to shelve the weird stuff for a while and concentrate on the basics, especially since the people we have reached with a version of the Gospel seem so poorly grounded.

You might think that all this means that we should never stir from basic issues. It does not. The problem is not that we have doctrinal differences and our own interpretations of scripture; it is that we take these things too seriously, as though they were themselves basic. Denominational distinctives should be taught in a church--though it would be a good idea to let people know that other views exist in areas that are not essential. And if people want to debate Creation Science versus theistic evolution, or even talk about prophecy, fine--though I'd be leery of doing such a thing during church. When there are new Christians and potential converts around, stick to the basics. More experienced Christians should discuss fringe areas among themselves. In this way, we can continue to explore whatever topics strike our fancy without endangering or warping new believers.

Will we learn to live out Romans 14, and put God and his family ahead of our own speculations and prejudices (even keeping our bright ideas to ourselves--Romans 14:22)? Or will we continue to do things our way--and wonder why the Spirit of God goes elsewhere?

The Purpose of Apologetics

1 Peter 3:15 mentions being ready to give a defense of one's faith--it also mentions doing it respectfully, an attitude I don't see much of these days. But is a defense a proof? In context, I'm not sure it is. Peter's talking about dealing with abusive people, and the point is that when you respond to bullying with God's love, the bullies (and perhaps others) will ask how you can exhibit such superhuman love. That's when you give your defense, which will probably have less to do with Creation vs. Evolution than with simply giving your testimony.

Thus Paul's "defense" in Acts 26 did not involve proofs in the modern sense. He simply gave his testimony, which bore witness to the life-changing power of God. The closest he came to apologetics in the modern sense was in Athens (Acts 17:15ff), where he mostly confronted the Athenians with instances where their own culture (especially their literature) had points of agreement with the Gospel. But he doesn't bother proving very much; he mostly asserts certain truths and appeals to shared experience.

So is apologetics wrong? No. I think it's greatly misused, however. While it is reasonable to answer critics' arguments against the Bible, for example, the goal is not so much to win converts as to defuse error. Sometimes it provides an occasion to present the truth, as when Christians had an opportunity to contrast the historical truth of the Bible with the pseudohistorical nonsense of the da Vinci Code. But notice what happens: it isn't the argumentation that wins people so much as God's Word!

Back to the title: what is the purpose of apologetics? As we've just seen, it answers accusations. But it also satisfies our human desire for rationality. We can't live without understanding, and apologetics, like systematic theology, gives us a coherent picture of our beliefs. As in Paul's case, we can seek a bridge to pagan culture, though again as in his case, it will usually break down when we get to important points such as the resurrection. Apologetics of this sort is most effective with those who are actively seeking--who want to believe but find their reason getting in the way.

The problem, then, occurs when we try to use apologetics for evangelism--especially when we use it instead of scripture. Then it becomes the very appeal from human wisdom Paul spoke against in 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:5. But what's the alternative? We'll find out next time.

The Limits of Argument

Wise adage #1: Heinlein said that man is not a rational animal but a rationalizing animal. That's often true. So when we try to address a spiritual matter from an intellectual standpoint, we're likely to run into rationalizations. Argument assumes that the other person is roughly neutral, willing to change views if shown he's in error.

It doesn't work.

Most people are where they are by choice--even a negative choice like being too lazy to check their childhood beliefs carefully. So when you inform someone that's he's wrong, you're telling him to change. Hardly anyone welcomes that.

Wise adage #2: A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. Even if you win the argument, you won't necessarily win the soul. Francis Schaeffer sought to avoid this problem by finding the "point of tension" in the other's beliefs: any time you disagree with God, you're out of synch with Reality. So there will always be a point where your stated beliefs and your actions conflict. And it won't be a case like the Christian who sins and admits it: it will be a fundamental disharmony.

It can get someone thinking when you topple his worldview like a house of cards. By God's grace he may even repent. But he's at least as likely to change to some other falsehood--less effort.

Wise adage #3: What you win someone with is what you win him to. If you win them with glitz, you win them over to a show-biz version of your view. If you win them with fear, dangling them over Hell, you'll win them to fear--and as soon as it's gone, they'll follow.

So with argument. All kidding aside, it's about proving that you're smarter than the other guy--even if you're only parroting someone else's argument.

Paul dealt with this in 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:5. It opens, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel--not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." And it concludes (2:1-5), "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

So what's the purpose of apologetics? We'll look at that next time.

Fake ID?

Intelligent Design gets a lot of strawman treatment, and no wonder: even its supporters don't always understand it. It isn't opposed to evolution as such, for example (some Christian evolutionists believe in intelligent design); it actually opposes methodological naturalism, the idea that anything can be dealt with scientifically as part of nature. So if angels exist, it should be possible to get hard data on them and determine the physical laws by which they work. What's amusing about this is that at this level neither ID nor methodological naturalism is "scientific": they are really metascience: metaphysical approaches to or assumptions about science.

(There is a scientific basis for ID, however: that some things cannot be reasonably explained except as products of design, and that there is a verifiable protocol for detecting such things. But back to the metascience of naturalism.)

The argument for naturalism is that it's impossible to have a theory that accounts for powers beyond nature: if miracles can occur, then the predictability of science is in jeopardy. This is true as far as it goes, but it should be clear that the result is biased, and biased in a way that can't really be justified. If the resulting theories were tagged as "accurate so far as naturalistic methods can discover," that wouldn't be bad. But it takes precious little effort to move from the theoretical acknowledgement that science has its limits to the effective pronouncement that the miraculous cannot occur. (And we may also observe that not all sciences are predictive anyway; some are more descriptive.)

Now, ID does not actually require miracles, just a Designer, and that Designer (if omniscient and omnipotent) could have simply planned for some things to happen that could not happen by chance. But what if science did allow for miracles? Would all vanish in primordial choas? No. Essentially, life and science would continue. The main difference would be in outlook: instead of claiming that appearances are truth, we would always place a limit ("so far as we can tell"). Perhaps we would even realize that our desire for knowledge doesn't justify all means of obtaining it. Similarly, "I'll do it because I can" is a terrifying statement. I found it morbidly amusing that at the same time the scientific community authoritatively dismissed Mengele's research on ethical and moral grounds, it clamored for experimentation on embryos.

So acknowledging that purely naturalistic science has its limits is a good thing. But does it help with apologetics? Not really. We'll see why next time.

Did We Bomb Hitler With Antimatter?

A Dialog Between Lunatics:

Looney 1: We ended World War Two by dropping an antimatter bomb on Hitler.
Looney 2: We did not! That's not how the war ended at all.
Looney 1: So, you're saying that antimatter doesn't exist! But it's a proven fact that it does.
Looney 2: No, it doesn't.

Take a look at that for a moment. Why are they both nuts? Well, Bachelor #2 could have gotten off the Looney Express as follows:

Looney: So, you're saying that antimatter doesn't exist! But it's a proven fact that it does.
Non-Looney: It doesn't matter whether antimatter exists. Historically, we did not end the war by bombing Hitler.

Now at this point the first guy would probably continue to rant, but at least the second one would have established his sanity.

What does this have to do with the Creation/Evolution debate?

Looney 1: We got here through purposeless biological evolution.
Looney 2: We did not! That's not how we got here at all.
Looney 1: So, you're saying that evolution doesn't occur! But it's a proven fact that it does.
Looney 2: No, it doesn't.

Now, with sanity:

Looney: So, you're saying that evolution doesn't occur! But it's a proven fact that it does.
Non-Looney: It doesn't matter whether evolution occurs. Historically, we did not get here by evolution.

The problem is that people on the Creation side let themselves get bogged down about whether evolution is possible. But that doesn't matter. Consider: if someone proved that a new species (not a subspecies) had evolved, would that really prove anything about how we got here? No. (If one could prove that evolution can't happen, that would settle the matter, but it's notoriously difficult to prove a negative.)

Yet I have actually known of people who claim that the Bible somewhere says that evolution is impossible. (It doesn't. Seriously.) Focusing on biological evolution is largely a red herring. While I personally take Gen 1 as literal history, some Christians don't. That should at least move us to caution.

In the next post, I'll look at what does matter--the point we should be arguing. (Some are arguing it already, in fact.) And then we'll consider why even that is only of secondary importance.

The World's Worst Definition?

As an example of how our view of apologetics has drifted, I'm going to look at evolution.

Evolution is defined as "Change over time." The first time I ran into that, a young Christian and reflexive theistic evolutionist was explaining to me why evolution doesn't conflict with the Bible. Leaving that point aside for the moment, I'm still amazed I didn't laugh in his face.

You see, all change is change over time. In fact, the way you know something has changed is by comparing Time 1 with Time 2 and spotting a difference. Arguably, if nothing changes, no time has elapsed.

More amusingly, by this definition, an embryo evolves into a baby and eventually an old person, and a bunch of raw materials evolves into a car and later a junk heap.

Even if you say that a longer time is meant, you aren't really talking about evolution in the typical sense unless you say that you mean change in a species arising over the course of several successive generations.

So why use such a lousy definition?

Right off hand, I can only think of one reason: to obscure rather than explain. Technically, there are a number of things called "evolution": stellar evolution, planetary evolution, and biological evolution. The only things these have in common are the word "evolution" and the concept of "change over time."

They are very different ideas, however. Non-biological evolution involves the development of an entity over time; biological evolution involves change in different entities over several successive generations. I don't think non-biological evolution is particularly controversial, either: given time, it would happen. Stellar and planetary evolution is simply applied physics.

But what about biological evolution? We'll look at that next time.