On Mon, 18 Mar 1996 14:25:26 GMT you wrote:
DT>Steve Jones wrote on 17th March:
SJ>"If one wants to have a harmonious view of reality, has to
>integrate the Biblical and scientific pictures into one
>worldview. There are basically three ways of doing this:
>1. Accept the Bible - Reject science
>2. Reject the Bible - Accept science
>3. Accept the Bible - Accept science
DT>[Comments on options 1 and 2 deleted ...]
SJ>Option 3 is the view that both the Bible and nature are "books"
>written by God, and ultimately they must both tell the same
>story. It is the view that I hold."
DT>We had some discussion of the "two books" last year - and I think
>it is relevant here. I'm not really happy with the three "basic"
>ways above. We can "accept" the Bible - but import our own
>culture/worldviews/etc and fail to submit our minds to God's
>revelation. We can "accept" science - without recognising that
>today's science will be tomorrow's inadequate theories.
Well, this is what I thought I said! :-) "We can `accept' the Bible"
and "We can `accept' science. I was only giving "basic" positions - I
did not pretend to give every nuance of accepting science and the
Bible.
DT>What we
>need it a Christian mind that approaches the Bible and science
>in a way that honours God as the author of all truth and the
>revealer of himself in Christ.
Agreed.
DT>So why is the "Two Books" issue relevant? - it is because the
>perception of these Books over the past 300+ years is that they
>are essentially distinct and separate. Science is given an
>autonomy of its own as a revelation of God. This is, in my view,
>a very dangerous position for a Christian to take (please note
>Steve that I am not wanting to read this into your post - but I
>am writing to bring out a potential ambiguity of importance).
We have indeed discussed this before. Bacon taught the two books
model in a way that kept the Bible and science as separate spheres of
knowledge:
`Let no man...think or maintain, that a man can search too far, or be
too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's
works...Let men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both;
only let men beware...that they do not unwisely mingle or confound
these learnings together." (Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
(1605), 1.1.3, 1.6.16, in Maatman R., "The Impact of Evolutionary
Theory: A Christian View, Dordt College Press, 1993, p9)
But it is not neccessary to adopt Bacon's interpretation. I believe
the "two books" of Scripture and nature are complementary. As a young
Christian I was greatly helped by Ramm's harmonistic "two books"
approach:
"If we believe that the God of creation is the God of redemption, and
that the God of redemption is the God of creation, then we are
committed to some very positive theory of harmonization between
science and evangelicalism. God cannot contradict His speech in
Nature by His speech in Scripture. If the Author of Nature and
Scripture are the same God, then the two books of God must eventually
recite the same story....It is as foolish for the hyper-orthodox to
write off science as it is for the religious liberals and neo-orthodox
to write off the Bible. The truth must be a conjunction of the two."
(Ramm B. "The Christian View of Science and Scripture", Paternoster:
London, 1955, pp25-26).
DT>Jitse's helpful paper refers to the same problem in Section 4:
>"The division of reality into a natural and a supernatural realm
>does not necessarily exclude interaction between these realms or
>between the ways we come to know them, that is between faith and
>science. In practice, however, a split view of reality is often
>associated with a split view of knowledge of the two realms. ...
Well gluttony "is often associated with" eating! :-) Just because some
use the "two books" model as a pretext to "exclude interaction between
these realms", does not mean the model itself is wrong.
DT>Moreover, there are reasons to believe that religious beliefs
>ought to make a difference in science. If this is correct, and
>I believe it is, then the preference of a majority of Christian
>scientists for a dualistic separation of religion and science is
>a bad omen for Christian scholarship."
Agreed. But perhaps this is because of their strong comittment to
naturalism?
DT>You refer to Ramm who says: "If the Author of Nature and
>Scripture are the same God, then the two books of God must
>eventually recite the same story.... We are to pay due respect
>to both science and Scripture."
I see I had already quoted Ramm! :-)
DT>Much as I respect Ramm, my concern is that he does not satisfy
>me as to what this "due respect" actually means! He also does
>not seem to give warnings about the "autonomy of science"
>movement which I consider hostile to the development of a truly
>Christian mind.
I am not sure this is completely fair to Ramm. But I would agree that
in some respects he seemed to bend over backwards to science. But then
he was reacting against the narrow fundamentalism of the 1950's and
trying to build bridges with science.
DT>It is always of interest to learn of how God has led different
>people - so thanks for your words of testimony. I think that one
>of the marks of being a Christian is that we have an openness to
>change - we are not people who are adopting a "position" and
>sticking by it at all costs. Our allegiance is to God - and we
>should expect to find God showing us where we need to change all
>through our lives - in our minds, actions, motives, commitments,
>etc. If we're not changing with time - maybe we've stopped
>listening to God :-)
Agreed. But the emphasis in Scripture is in fact toward "adopting a
`position' and sticking by it":
Eph 4:14 "Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by
the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by
the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming."
DT>I've been wondering whether to try an illustrate some of these
>points related to "science" - and have decided to take the
>plunge. I have to say, though, that I'm not going to be able to
>sustain a quick-fire style of response if it comes! But I will
>do my best ...
>
>Steve, you wrote about the "age of the earth" issues as follows.
>There are three points, and I will give a short response to each,
>indicating where I think presuppositions have been elevated to
>the status of "fact" or "truth":
>SJ: "I have no "training in geology", so I will pass. But for
>what it's worth, the following appear decisive to me as a layman:
>1. Evidence for ordinary rate processes 100 years before Darwin
>were sufficient to establish that the earth was millions of years
>old."
>There are a few cases of theorists speculating about millions of
>years - but 100 years before Darwin most people who had a
>contribution in earth science did not adopt long chronologies.
I was following Hayward:
"For many centuries it had been believed that the world was only a few
thousand years old, and the Reformers considered that they could date
it from Scripture as being less than six thousand years. It therefore
shook the world when eighteenth- century geologists discovered
evidence that the earth's crust is very much older than that. It is
important to note that it was in the eighteenth century that this
first happened - well before Darwin was born. The pioneer geologist
James Hutton, for instance, wrote that he could see 'no vestige of a
beginning' to the earth's history - and he died in 1797." (Hayward
A., "Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and
the Bible", Bethany House: Minneapolis, 1995, p72)
While "100 years" may be an overstatement, the fact is that scientific
belief in an old Earth pre-dated Darwin.
DT>But, by this time, the "Two Books" perspective discussed above
>was getting entrenched in geological literature - and speculative
>thinking was unconstrained by Biblical history. The people who
>worked most with rocks were sympathetic to catastrophism of one
>kind or another. Your reference to "evidence for ordinary rate
>processes" is problematic. When we get to the time of James
>Hutton, we reach the controversy between catastrophists and the
>uniformitarians. The latter presupposed ordinary rate processes
>in order to interpret the rocks; the former argued that ordinary
>rate processes were inadequate to account for the evidences in
>the rocks. Hutton's ideas gained acceptance - but not without
>the crucial influence of Charles Lyell, who said, in effect, "if
>we don't adopt the principle of uniformity of rate, we have no
>science of Geology". In this he was wrong - as Gould, Ager and
>others have ably argued recently. Whilst neo-catastrophism has
>changed the climate in geology, there is a long way to go! Most
>sedimentological studies are still rooted in uniformitarianism -
> and there are plenty of surprises ahead! Was it Bill Hamilton
>who posted a comment on the Grand Canyon? - I'm willing to
>express a few thoughts on that, but I've not archived his post.
All this is very interesting but even the catastrophists believed in
an old Earth:
"...Lyell...set up a straw man to demolish. By 1830, no serious
scientific catastrophist believed that cataclysms had a supernatural
cause or that the earth was 6,000 years old....all of the great
nineteenth- century catastrophists-Cuvier, Agassiz, Sedgwick, and
Murchison in particular-accepted an earth of great antiquity, and they
all sought a natural basis for the cataclysmic changes that occurred
in the past." (Gould S.J., "Ever Since Darwin", Penguin: London,
1977, p149)
>SJ: "2. Then radiometric dating established that the earth is
>thousands of millions of years old. Even if radiometric dating
>is partly wrong, it would have to be *several million times
>wrong* if the Earth was really 10^3 years old, when it appears
>to be 4.6 x 10^9 years old."
TD>This is undoubtedly the key evidence for an old earth. However,
>I'm going to argue that we have not explored adequately the
>presuppositions inherent in the methods. All of these methods
>operate on the premise that it is possible to know the initial
>conditions. However, there are indications that our models are
>imposed on the data - not a consequence of the data. Take the
>U-Th-Pb system: Melvin Cook showed in "Prehistory and Earth
>Models" that the distinction between "normal lead" and "abnormal
>lead" is artificial. The continuity in isotopic distributions
>suggests that we do not really know how much radiogenic lead was
>present in any mineral at its time of formation. Or the Rb/Sr
>system, where the isochron technique is presented as a sure way
>of finding initial conditions: there are numerous examples of
>isochrons which have no meaningful age, and where substantial
>recycling/reworking of minerals is indicated. There is also the
>recognition that some isochrons are associated with magma mixing.
>(I am conscious that last year, Jim Foley sent me some posts
>relating to Steve Austin's work in the Grand Canyon. I've not
>forgotten that - but I've completely misplaced my copy of "Grand
>Canyon: Monument to catastrophe", and I would like to consult
>that before responding to Jim).
Again, all this is very interesting and no doubt the radiometric
dating may be "party wrong" as I said above. But even if it's 99%
wrong, that would be no comfort to a YEC. The remaining 1% would
still be 46 million years!
>SJ: "3. The universe appears to be between 8 and 20 billion years
>old, based on red-shift observations and star burning rates."
DT>One thing that can be said about all cosmologies is that they are
>presupposition-based. They are a paradise for mathematicians.
>Have we really explored alternative cosmologies - based on other
>presuppositions. For example, instead of thinking that the
>universe is infinite and it appears the same from every
>perspective within it, try developing the idea that the universe
>is finite.
Who argues that "the universe is infinite"? If it's "between 8 and 20
billion years old", then it's by definition "finite"!
>SJ: "4. There is no positive evidence that the Earth is 10,000
>years old. Dates that YECs use to discredit radiometric dating,
>for example, still yield ages far in excess of 10,000 years."
DT>I think I am going to end on a note of agreement! In my view,
>all "clocks" have been so disrupted by catastrophes in the past...
Unfortunately we may *not* be in "agreement" here. :-( I do not claim
that "all `clocks' have been so disrupted by catastrophes in the
past", although I once thought this was possible. However my agnostic
evolutionist fidonet former sparring partner Derek Mclarnen (a lurker
on the Reflector) has pointed out that neutron fluxes from
supernovae cannot penetrate more than a few metres and neutrinos have
little or no effect. There seems to be no other known mechanisms
AFAIK to effect the drastic resetting of radiometric clocks required
by YEC.
DT>...that we cannot be sure of the accuracy of any dating method.
>Some are useful for relative dates (C14 for example) but I think
>our general desire to define accurately a chronology of the earth
>will always meet insurmountable problems.
There seems to a little bit of YEC-style verbal sleight of
hand here? :-) (I am not claiming you are a YEC David, but this type
of argument is common in YEC literature). It is not enough that
"`clocks" have been so disrupted...in the past that we cannot be
sure of the accuracy of any dating method". YEC depends not on
"clocks" being merely "disrupted" but being continually reset back
to zero! YEC needs not merely that "we cannot be sure of the accuracy
of any dating method", but the radiometric dating method must be wrong
to a fantastic degree that is quite unprecedented in science. I
conclude with Ramm:
"Finally, the data accumulating from radio-active dating of strata is
too well established to be discounted by flood geologists. Flood
geologists have done their best to disrupt this method and try to show
that it is completely unreliable. It is not a matter of this method
being 50 per cent wrong or even 75 per cent wrong. It must be over 99
per cent wrong. In fact if it were 99 per cent wrong (or one per cent
right) it would still refute flood geology. Five million years is one
per cent of the 500 million years of the Cambrian period." (Ramm B.
"The Christian View of Science and Scripture", Paternoster: London,
1955, pp128-129).
God bless.
Steve
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