During an afternoon visit to the National Museum of the United Sates Air Force outside Dayton, OH I was struck with the amazing power of the human spirit. This reminder was brought home even more powerfully as I left Ohio to pilot an aircraft across the North Atlantic Ocean. Peering down from an altitude of 33,000 feet, between blankets of snowy clouds, I saw the cold face of the northern seas flashing and sparkling in the chilly sunlight.

Only 80 years ago Charles Lindbergh undertook much of the same trip I’m flying, only he did it in an airplane a fraction of the size of mine, without any crew, and a relatively primitive compass for navigation rather than multiple mission computers to blend GPS and inertial reference system navigation solutions. What seemed impossible at the time has now become commonplace, so much so that there are international agreements governing the times and locations aircraft can depart the eastern and western seaboards as well as mandating the sort of navigational and computer-controlled flight control systems required to be onboard.

It is staggering to see how far man has come, and how quickly he has learned from his scientific mistakes and studies. It also is cause for sober soul-searching as well. Next to the museum exhibit about the beginning of heavier-than-air powered flight was an exhibit that chronicled the use of aircraft in the two wars that shook the world. A brief timeline recorded the nationalism, fascism, and humanism that combined to create an interminable list of atrocities against mankind. In the midst of optimistic scientific and technological advances, the ugly spectre of war rose and dealt out punishment in terms previously unimaginable.

And now, my reasons for crossing the North Atlantic also give me cause for sober reflection. (more…)

The recent discussion on my post has been, if nothing else, illuminating and humbling.  The criticisms, questions, and issues are overwhelming.  While I unfortunately was unable to participate due to working two jobs and receiving major life news that kept me mentally occupied (more on that later, I think), it has been stretching to read through the comments.  If the quality of Mere O’s readers is that high, then I suppose we must be doing something right.

The post itself was written in haste, as I was more interested in highlighting the article than anything else.  To that end, I would offer a few (hopefully!) clarifications and questions of my own.
1)  One of the major criticisms was levied against my parallel between Jesus and Darwin.  While Darwinism (more on that in a second) is clearly separable from its founder, Christianity is not.  The objection is duly noted.  While I think Darwinism shares many elements of a religion, including religious fervor by some of its proponents, by virtue of its evolutionary (heh) nature it is clearly separable from its founder, unlike Christianity.

2)  My use of “Darwinism” was clearly loose.  As I was thinking of the “new atheists” (and of them, Dawkins), I was thinking of it as physicalism.

3)   The erudite Falk made this excellent comment:

The basis of Darwinian evolution is natural selection, not manual selection. This distinction is important because eugenics concerns only the latter and not the former. Darwinian evolution cannot be intelligently used as support for eugenics.

It is an excellent distinction.  But not one, I think, that saves Darwinian evolution from lending itself to eugenics.  If “human nature” is not a fixed entity, if it subject to continual development and “progress” (contra Biblical or Aristotelian notions of human nature), then it seems refashioning human nature, and the human race, is morally permissible.

I’m holding this very tentatively, because it is obviously disputable and am still considering the issues.

Two perhaps unrelated questions, though, for the naturalists who read this blog:  is the difference between animals and humans a difference of kind, or a difference of degree?  What, if any, ramifications does this have for ethics?

Warning: I’m writing this assuming you’ve seen the film. There are spoilers. (Then again, C.S. Lewis thought it was a vulgar pleasure to want to know what happens in a story.)

“Harold,” Dustin Hoffman’s remarkable character flatly states, “I’m sorry. You are going to die.” (more…)

Jesus was no stranger to controversial or confusing claims:  “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on the earth.  I did not bring come to bring peace, but a sword.”   “Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”
It is the duty of Christians to understand, to embrace, and even to proclaim such statements.  When we fail to do so, we will have lost our intellectual integrity, and more importantly, separated ourselves from the fountainhead of our religion.  Christianity, as a religion, cannot be separated from its founder and still remain Christianity.
While Darwin may not have been the first proponent of his theory, he is widely acclaimed as its most influential modern advocate.  It is Darwin, as Dawinks famously put it, that made it intellectually respectable to be an atheist.

But Darwin apparently thought his theories had more implications than modern Darwinians–Dawkins, Sam Harris, Stephen Jay Gould–care to acknowledge.  While Jesus chastised the social leaders of his day–”that fox,” “you whitewashed tombs”–Darwin justified their existence by establishing a hierarchy of human persons as a result of evolution.  The Divine Right of Kings had established the monarchy, but the monarchy was to protect the people.  With Darwin, the hierarchy is simply a result of “natural selection.”  Hence, for Darwin, eugenics and other evils are acceptable means of furthering social evolution (social Darwinism, this is called, was not accidental to his system).

Or so argues Peter Quinn in his essay “Gentle Darwinians:  What Darwin’s Champions Won’t Mention.”  Quinn writes:

“The Nietzsche of the Gentle Nietzscheans,” concluded Cruise O’Brien, “is a fake.” If the Darwin of the Gentle Darwinians is not an absolute fake, he is at best a half-drawn facsimile: the industrious, inquisitive scientist-cum-squire bathed in light; the superior, smug Malthusian obscured or omitted. Gould offers general absolution for the racism, imperialism, and eugenic dogma so prominent in Darwin. His lame defense is that Darwin was doing nothing more than mouthing platitudes when in fact he was bestowing a new and dangerous pseudo-scientific authority on pernicious categories of superior and inferior human beings.

And:

The marriage of evolutionary theory and social policy wasn’t accidental and didn’t go unnoticed by Darwin. He believed very strongly in the close parallel between the operation of natural selection across the eons of geologic time (what Gopnik calls “deep time”) and the necessity of survival of the fittest in “quick time”-the span of a single life. The process that placed the Anglo-Saxon atop creation must be affirmed and encouraged, not weakened and impaired.

Darwinism is not a religion, though it shares many of the same elements as religions.  It is an intellectual movement, and subject to…evolution.  But it is not clear whether it can actually move away from it’s ugly underbelly, or whether fundamentally the notions of “survival of the fittest” will allow for altruistic acts, while also preventing social engineering.  Unlike Christianity, the future is an open future.  We can make it, and ourselves, into what we want it to be.  Unlike Christianity, it has no fixed reference to prevent us from remaking humanity in our own image.  There is no Eden to look back to, nor a heaven to look forward to.  There is only us, and what we make of the world and each other.

By sanitizing Darwin for our 21st century sensibilities, Darwinian advocates have managed to pervade culture with the foundation for a new society that is driven by our vision for the world.  In doing so, they have paved the way for the return of eugenics, social engineering, and transhumanism, which will no doubt come more subtly than they ever have before.  As resources become more scarce, “survival of the fittest” will undercut pleas to save the less fit, and the attempt to have Darwinism without Darwin–with all of his baggage–will be as successful as a Christianity without Christ.

How ought evangelicals to think about Mary, the mother of Jesus?

I am a born-and-raised protestant. I grew up in a “non-demonimational” Vineyard Christian Fellowship church. I have since spent a lot of time in Episcopalian parishes, but I have been called back to the Vineyard church of my youth, and there I shall remain, until the Lord leads me elsewhere. All that to say, I am by no means Roman Catholic. And yet, through a close reading of the church fathers during my time at Biola University, and through ongoing conversations with Christians of the past (in books) and Christians of the present (in person), I have come to appreciate a few things about Mary, that very unique young lady whom was given the position of being Jesus’ mother, things which I subconsciously thought were vain and idolotrous to appreciate, or at least, non-evangelical.

I appreciated Matt’s thoughts, and I look forward to reading Scott McKnight’s book on this topic. In the meantime, let me offer three of my most modest and least controversial observations about Mary and her unique place as a character in the story of the universe, in hopes that my fellow evangelical readers can join me in breathing a little more easily when they think about Mary, without, in so doing, seeming (God forbid!) Roman Catholic on the one hand and without ignoring the facts on the other hand.

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Why does the Bible simply proclaim, rather than argue and defend, difficult Christian doctrines like the Trinity or the Incarnation?

This question has been staring at me all afternoon from the little pocket notebook I carry with me to church. This notebook of mine is usually filled with a mad mix of scribbled notes and sermon outlines as I attempt to keep pace with the morning and evening message from the pulpit. Today, however, the question I jotted down sort of stopped my train of thought. It is something that has often nagged at me and challenged my more rational and intellectual tendencies to provide an answer to a question that seems to undercut much of my approach to God, religion, and theology.

Why does the Bible simply proclaim, rather than argue and defend, difficult Christian doctrines like the Trinity or the Incarnation?

Today we began a study of the Gospel according to Mark. The book opens with a reference to Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the Messiah. Eight verses are devoted to preparing the way for the coming Messiah. Verse nine simply and rather anti-climactically announces, “Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan.” And then the heavens were rent, the Spirit descends, and the Father proclaims the identity of this unknown man, Jesus, as His son. Whisk. And Jesus is taken out and tempted in the wilderness. The proclamation of the long-awaited Savior, the divine blessing and identification of Jesus as divine, and the record of the temptation of Jesus follow swiftly, each nearly tripping over the heels of the next part of the narrative. And no explanation is given of how these events could possibly coherently fit together; yet is plainly assumed that they do. The Messiah is coming. A commoner from the backwoods of Israel is baptized. God the Father speaks from heaven. Jesus is tempted to sin. Nothing is offered by way of apology for the extravagance of these events, the apparent discordance of humanity and divinity existing in one being, or the amazing claim that is being made simply by recounting them together as one single narrative.

Why does the Bible simply proclaim, rather than argue and defend, difficult Christian doctrines like the Trinity or the Incarnation?

Fact is the foundation for theory. Fact sets the playing field and demarcates the boundaries within we must play. Fact is the major chord, theory the descant and grace notes. I tend to reverse the two and press my theories and ideas upon the world, as though my mind were the form and the world around me nothing but pliable putty. The Bible and Christian witness has no room for such nonsense. The Bible offers up the facts, the first and ultimate things which must be taken into account by any theory or worldview. It does not apologize for stating the facts, as facts are not the sorts of things that one can rightly every apologize for. They simply are what they are. One may love or hate them, feel uncomfortable proclaiming them, or even choose to ignore them; all this and more has little bearing on their nature.

The Christian story ultimately claims to be a story of facts, a proclamation of things as they are. If the Bible is true it needs no defense because it is a record of what was and is a revelation of what is and will be. The Trinity and the Incarnation are not presented as theories seeking to harmonzie various facts. Rather, they are the facts themselves which we must harmonize and learn to be in harmony with.

“We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” (1 John 4:14)

I have sometimes argued that the evangelical church is afflicted by the ancient gnostic heresy.  The old heresies don’t die.  Like the eastern notion of reincarnation, they are always being revived and cast in different clothing.  Gnosticism is one of these (as is Pelagianism, Docetism, etc).

Tonight, Joe Carter wrote an appreciation of Catholicism that included this thought:

[Evangelicals] complete renunciation of Marian theology, however, often causes me to downplay the importance of Mary herself, indisputably one of the most incredible humans who every lived. How can we not be in awe of this woman when we realize she held God in her womb? Our Catholic friends remind us that Jesus wasn’t just the son of God; He was Mary’s son too.

I wrote a comment immediately, then thought I would share it here:

Incidentally, as I read your thoughts about Mary, I wondered whether the resistance to thinking hard about Mary stems from the neo-gnostic strain that seems to afflict much of evangelicalism. It seems that Jesus’ humanity (including his corporeality), Mary, and a robust ecclesiology are interconnected. After all, the Church is (on some accounts) the “hands and feet” of Jesus on earth now. Mary reminds us that he had real hands and feet–neglecting her may cause us to forget that.

I will confess that I don’t have a good handle on what evangelicals should do with Mary (no, I haven’t read Scot McKnight’s book yet!).  But it seems interesting to me that our appreciation of her is as robust as our ecclesiology.  Perhaps the proper recovery of the latter will lead to a growth in the former.  What might such a robust appreciation of the mother of God look like?  For evangelicals, it is an open question, but a question that demands an answer, especially if we are to escape the gnosticism of old.

One of the major critiques of traditional natural law theory is that it attempts to derive “ought”–moral responsibility–from the “is” of essences.

While speaking at a youth group last Sunday, the topic of homosexuality arose. The students intimated that they didn’t think it was wrong because of the biological basis for the behavior. They were at a loss to explain how something could be “natural” and yet be considered wrong.

But if the “is” doesn’t entail “ought” for natural law theorists, then neither does it entail ought for those who contend that homosexual practices are morally permissible. David Powlinson, a Christian psychologist, submitted this entry to Justin Taylor’s inestimable blog Between Two Worlds:

Myers’s biological data on homosexuality was admittedly rather dim light, not something that could drag a researcher along who was not otherwise willing. But let me offer another “unscientific” comment about data that might yet be discovered. When or if the “homosexuality gene” is discovered, I predict that the facts will be of the following kind. Among people without the H-gene, say 1.5% are oriented towards homosexuality, while among people with the H-gene, say 15% are oriented towards homosexuality. That would be a very significant statistical difference. But what would it prove? Only that characteristic temptations differ, that our bodies are one locus of temptation, that nothing is deterministic either way. It will be analogous to finding any other “gene for sin.” Those with the “worry gene,” the “anger gene,” the “addictive pleasure gene,” or the “kleptomania gene” will be prone to the respective sins. Such findings cause no problem for the Faith. They do trouble a Pelagian view that defines sin only as conscious “choice.” But sin is an unsearchable morass of disposition, drift, willful choice, unwitting impulse, obsession, compulsion, seeming happenstance, the devil’s appetite for souls, the world’s shaping influence, and God’s hardening of hard hearts. Of course biological factors are at work: we are embodied sinners and saints. That some people may be more prone to homosexuality is no more significant that that some may be more prone to worry.

While I might quibble with Powlinson’s rejection of sin as a “conscious choice,” the substance identifies the issue exactly. The substance of his comments, however, capture the issue. Every Christian needs to reflect on this argument, not only to accurately respond to claims that homosexual practices are no different than heterosexual practices, but also to recognize that homosexuality as a sin is no worse than other sins toward which we ourselves might be inclined.

It does make Paul ahead of his time, though. It’s no surprise as Christians we eagerly await our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23).

I spent my morning with a wonderful friend (who is now also my boss) inviting some high school-aged young people to attend Wheatstone Academy this summer. Our “marketing method” is simply to visit a classroom, in this case the Freshmen and Senior Bible classes at San Juan Capistrano Valley Christian School, and to engage in a lively dialectical discussion with them. In a free-ranging and impromptu style, we asked them to think about the pros and cons of modern technology, iPods, movies, the internet, etc., and we challenged them to discover ways to intelligently use these tools while avoiding the most common type of harm that can come from them. Those who are interested and engaged by such a conversation would probably enjoy the conference. Those who were bored and/or totally did not understand the question probably would not enjoy the conference, where we spend time with some wonderful scholars like JP Moreland and Fred Sanders, have small group discussions, and do higher-brow cultural outings.

It struck me, as we tried to interest and challenge this group of bright young people, that we were not trying to sell them on a product, and we were not even selling them on an idea. We were selling them on a way of life. Or better yet, on Life, with a capital L. We have come to believe, because of the influence of our mentors, the great books of Western Civilization, that life on this earth is first and foremost a dynamic thing. It is everchanging. The one thing that characterizes life is that it has no consistant characteristics. Death and taxes are perhaps inevitable, but what else is? Relationships change, points-of-view grow and change, where we live changes, how comfortable we are fluctuates endlessly, what we think is important in life morphs and develops dramatically, and on and on. The one constant is flux. So how are we to swim in the stormy tides of the human condition? By accepting the changing-ness, and taking responsibility for ourselves and our lives. By applying the free will God gave us to our lives in an effort to keep things changing in a direction, from good to better to great to heavenly, rather than from good to OK to not-so-good to horrible. The great challenge is to take a cold hard look at this life and our strange parodoxical identity as humans and to say, “I accept the challenge. I will find out what it means to succeed, and I will do whatever it takes to succeed.” We have the potential, as Giovanni Pica Della Mirandola so passionately argued, to become almost anything. Human beings can grow to be ecstatically happy, “little lower than the angels,” or horribly debase, much worse than the the most savage of wildlife.

The difference rests, primarily, I would argue, in the choices we make. The fact, therefore, that good choices are possible is good news. The possibility of living life, of living Eternal Life, in a community of excellent human beings under the leadership of the One who created us — this seems like not just good news, but the Good News.
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Well, BBC listeners chose, surprisingly, Karl Marx by an overwhelming majority. The next three in the runnings also exercised great influence for what most would call evil: David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Frederich Nietzche. Finally, Plato gets in there, but his 6% pales in comparison to the 28% garnered for Marx.

I’m interested in what Mere-O readers think of this poll and its results (Is Marx even a proper philosopher?). Also, who would you name as the greatest philosopher and why? Take a look at the BBC shortlist to give yourself an idea of the criteria for a “philosopher” – you know it is broad when the likes of Kierkegaard and Marx are on there.