Today in Dr. McGrath's Sunday school class, we had our "evolution weekend" conversation that was postponed from last Sunday, when he was away at the Midwest SBL meeting.
Dr. McGrath emphasized that there is nothing specifically limited to evolution that singles it out for a greater degree of conflict with a literal reading of the Bible than other scientific fields. Some examples offered include:
(1) Genetics and embryology: Psalm 139:13 says that God knit the psalmist (and presumably humans in general) together in the mother's womb. Literalists ought to be up in arms about this and opposed to the contemporary scientific understanding, since it is not merely about the origin of our species but the status of each individual as a divine creation. Yet not only is there apparently no Christian antiembryological movements, but many Christians find it comforting to believe that God does not directly cause congenital birth defects.
(2) Meteorology: Leviticus 26:4 attributes the rain directly to God, and so how can meteorologists dare to attribute it to natural phenomena such as barometric pressure and who knows what else?
(3) Astronomy and Australians: We had an entertaining discussion about the plausibility of the existence of Australians. But not only does Joshua 10:12-14 suggest a different view of the solar system than that accepted today, but it seems to involve Joshua addressing the sun and moon, which is a whole other discussion. When it comes to the movement of the earth, here we do find people who reject mainstream science on the basis of an appeal to the Bible. Passages like Psalm 104:5, Psalm 93:1 and 1 Chronicles 16:30 are pretty clear.
And so, on the one hand, a genuinely and consistently literalistic approach to the Bible would put one at odds with all science and many other fields of knowledge, and not just evolution. On the other hand, the evidence for evolution is every bit as solid as for other scientific fields. That doesn't mean that our knowledge is not growing. At times new discoveries do cause us to revise or supplement our earlier thinking. But what is striking is that, while scientists love making new discoveries that show where other great minds have been wrong, propelling the discoverer/pioneer to the front cover of science magazines, we've yet to see a young-earth creationist or proponent of intelligent design accomplish that, because they are not offering research that improves our understanding, but mere empty criticism that neither correctly identifies problems with current theory or offers genuinely helpful improvements or alternatives.
We concluded with me pointing out that those who claim that science, or more specifically evolutionary biologists, reduce human beings to a mere pile of chemicals of little value, simply misunderstand the nature of scientific analysis. Genesis 2 says humans are dirt, if one wants to talk about physical make-up. Neither religion nor science claims humans are more or less valuable because of our composition. If there is anything that makes us valuable, it is the complex arrangement of the matter that makes us up, and our capacity to relate to one another and to God, to compose and appreciate works of beauty, and in other ways transcend what might be expected of the atoms that make up our physical composition.
To use another analogy, one can accurately analyse a symphony in terms of the chemical composition of the instruments or the physical vibrations in the air. Such analyses are not scientifically incorrect. They are just different perspectives, and ones that we may well deem insufficient on their own, since it is also appropriate (perhaps necessary) to do justice to our appreciation of the symphony as beautiful. The problem, in other words, is in no way with scientific analysis, but with reductionism, that is to say, the attempt to say that humans are "nothing but" the chemicals of which we are made, or a symphony is "nothing but" vibrations. But the natural sciences claim that the analysis they offer are part of the story, not that there is nothing more to be said at other levels and from other perspectives.
Next week we'll connect up the current series with our previous topic by looking at Romans 5.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Sunday School: Genesis 1:1-2:3
Today in Dr. McGrath's Sunday school class we started a series on the creation stories. Before trying to ask how the natural sciences might cause us to reflect in new and different ways about God and our place in the universe, it is usually helpful for Christians to look first at the creation stories, and consider what they do and do not tell us. Today our focus was on the story of creation in 7 days found in Genesis 1:1-2:3. Many of the subjects we touched on are ones Dr. McGrath regularly covers in his course on the Bible, such as the similarities and differences between Genesis 1 and the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish being a key to understanding the text.
A key point Dr. McGrath made is that no one (even if they call themselves literalists) takes the dome literally. To single out evolutionary biology as though it were more at odds with Christian faith than other realms of scientific explanation is likewise unjustified. Also mentioned was the fact that the text of Genesis 1 depicts God commanding the earth to bring forth life, rather than creating in some more direct manner.
The question of authorship came up briefly. Next time we'll discuss whether there is more than one creation story in these early chapters of Genesis.
A key point Dr. McGrath made is that no one (even if they call themselves literalists) takes the dome literally. To single out evolutionary biology as though it were more at odds with Christian faith than other realms of scientific explanation is likewise unjustified. Also mentioned was the fact that the text of Genesis 1 depicts God commanding the earth to bring forth life, rather than creating in some more direct manner.
The question of authorship came up briefly. Next time we'll discuss whether there is more than one creation story in these early chapters of Genesis.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
What Do You Say That I Did?
In Dr. McGrath's Sunday school class this past Sunday, we moved on from discussing who Jesus was to discussing what he did, and how it relates to the Christian experience usually placed under the heading of "salvation".
We began with the story of a child who, in church on Good Friday, asked her parents why anyone would crucify a 3-month-old baby. Apparently the church's year, celebrating Easter a few months after Christmas, was being taken somewhat too literally. The reason for telling this story is that, for some Christians, if Jesus had died at 3 months old it would apparently not have much of an impact on their understanding of what Jesus had come to accomplish. He had come to die, and between birth and death Jesus was simply "killing time" waiting to die. Any view of the cross that ignores the life that preceded it is going to be problematic.
It is not surprising that some Christians view Jesus in this way. On the one hand, since Paul had not followed Jesus in the pre-Easter period (although he may have become aware of the movement centered on him as soon as it reached Jerusalem, whether before or after Easter), and because he was writing to individuals who could be presumed to have had Christian tradition passed on to them, Paul never fills his letters with stories about Jesus' life. The cross was also the part of the story of Jesus that was potentially the most troubling, and thus the early Christians had had to make it central, and come up with an explanation that would regard the cross as a necessary and intelligible part of God's plan, and so they had found a way of interpreting it as salvific.
Another key focus in the Sunday school class was on what theologians call the "penal substitution" view of atonement. It is problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it is based on a view of justice that no one would otherwise accept. If the U.S., failing to apprehend Osama bin Laden, claimed that it had nonetheless accomplished its mission because they executed some other innocent individual in his place, I doubt if anyone would be happy with this as a resolution of the matter.
It is also a view of the cross that is not found in the Bible. Sure, it can be read into it, but it cannot be found there unless one is already looking for it. For Paul, the key meaning of Jesus' death is summed up well in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15: "one died for all, and therefore all died". That's almost the exact opposite of the popular Evangelical message, "one died instead of all, so that they might not have to die". Even if we conclude that Paul's language of "dying with Christ" is just another way of talking metaphorically about denying ourselves and self-sacrifice, it nevertheless makes clear that the Christian view of "salvation" expressed here is not about Jesus doing something instead of us, but of something that involves us and happens to us and in us. Ironically, while some feel they are glorifying God by making atonement something that involves no action or effort on our part, they've also radically departed from a central component of early Christian belief.
There has never been a single creed defining for all Christians what the cross means. Many have agreed that no one image or metaphor will do justice to its significance. But it certainly is important to ensure that the element of challenge and its transformational effect on our lives is not relegated to the margins or neglected altogether.
Next week we'll begin a new topic, spending some time in the creation stories in Genesis 1-3 and discussing matters of creation, cosmology, evolution and science.
We began with the story of a child who, in church on Good Friday, asked her parents why anyone would crucify a 3-month-old baby. Apparently the church's year, celebrating Easter a few months after Christmas, was being taken somewhat too literally. The reason for telling this story is that, for some Christians, if Jesus had died at 3 months old it would apparently not have much of an impact on their understanding of what Jesus had come to accomplish. He had come to die, and between birth and death Jesus was simply "killing time" waiting to die. Any view of the cross that ignores the life that preceded it is going to be problematic.
It is not surprising that some Christians view Jesus in this way. On the one hand, since Paul had not followed Jesus in the pre-Easter period (although he may have become aware of the movement centered on him as soon as it reached Jerusalem, whether before or after Easter), and because he was writing to individuals who could be presumed to have had Christian tradition passed on to them, Paul never fills his letters with stories about Jesus' life. The cross was also the part of the story of Jesus that was potentially the most troubling, and thus the early Christians had had to make it central, and come up with an explanation that would regard the cross as a necessary and intelligible part of God's plan, and so they had found a way of interpreting it as salvific.
Another key focus in the Sunday school class was on what theologians call the "penal substitution" view of atonement. It is problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it is based on a view of justice that no one would otherwise accept. If the U.S., failing to apprehend Osama bin Laden, claimed that it had nonetheless accomplished its mission because they executed some other innocent individual in his place, I doubt if anyone would be happy with this as a resolution of the matter.
It is also a view of the cross that is not found in the Bible. Sure, it can be read into it, but it cannot be found there unless one is already looking for it. For Paul, the key meaning of Jesus' death is summed up well in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15: "one died for all, and therefore all died". That's almost the exact opposite of the popular Evangelical message, "one died instead of all, so that they might not have to die". Even if we conclude that Paul's language of "dying with Christ" is just another way of talking metaphorically about denying ourselves and self-sacrifice, it nevertheless makes clear that the Christian view of "salvation" expressed here is not about Jesus doing something instead of us, but of something that involves us and happens to us and in us. Ironically, while some feel they are glorifying God by making atonement something that involves no action or effort on our part, they've also radically departed from a central component of early Christian belief.
There has never been a single creed defining for all Christians what the cross means. Many have agreed that no one image or metaphor will do justice to its significance. But it certainly is important to ensure that the element of challenge and its transformational effect on our lives is not relegated to the margins or neglected altogether.
Next week we'll begin a new topic, spending some time in the creation stories in Genesis 1-3 and discussing matters of creation, cosmology, evolution and science.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Different Views of Jesus
Today in Dr. McGrath's Sunday School class, we moved beyond our discussion of the varied portraits of Jesus found in the Gospels to begin to answer the question posed in Mark's Gospel, "Who do you say that I am?" Dr. McGrath's own personal answer was to focus on Jesus as crucified Messiah. Historians may debate (as illustrated by the book by Tom Wright and Marcus Borg mentioned in class, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions
) how Jesus viewed himself and how various Christian understandings of Jesus developed. But one thing seems clear. Christianity continued, while other messianic movements disappeared after the individual who was their focus was killed, because instead of concluding that Jesus was not the Messiah because he had been crucified, instead they reinterpreted what was meant by Messiah, leaving us with the challenge of following a path that does not lead to our own personal gain. It is the power of that message that has changed countless lives, and it does not ultimately depend on historical reconstruction in detail of all that Jesus said and did.
Other subjects came up which will be the focus of our discussion next time. It is common in a Christian context to speak about Jesus as "God". But what does that mean? When Jesus behaves humanly, is that "just his humanity at work" at that moment? Did God accept human limitations in the incarnation (the term for that being kenotic Christology)? Was Jesus striding the earth getting the answer to every question right?
That last question led to an interesting side debate about whether Superman could get a haircut.
) how Jesus viewed himself and how various Christian understandings of Jesus developed. But one thing seems clear. Christianity continued, while other messianic movements disappeared after the individual who was their focus was killed, because instead of concluding that Jesus was not the Messiah because he had been crucified, instead they reinterpreted what was meant by Messiah, leaving us with the challenge of following a path that does not lead to our own personal gain. It is the power of that message that has changed countless lives, and it does not ultimately depend on historical reconstruction in detail of all that Jesus said and did.Other subjects came up which will be the focus of our discussion next time. It is common in a Christian context to speak about Jesus as "God". But what does that mean? When Jesus behaves humanly, is that "just his humanity at work" at that moment? Did God accept human limitations in the incarnation (the term for that being kenotic Christology)? Was Jesus striding the earth getting the answer to every question right?
That last question led to an interesting side debate about whether Superman could get a haircut.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
From John's Gospel to the Creeds
Today in Dr. McGrath's Sunday School class we arrived at the last of our classes on the ways Jesus is presented in the canonical Gospels, focusing on the Gospel of John with its unique features such as the notion of Jesus as the Word-become-flesh and the pre-existence of the Son of Man. Dr. McGrath gave a brief overview of his book and his conclusion that the developments in the Gospel of John result from an attempt to defend Christian beliefs, during which process developments and expansions to Christian though take place.
We discussed whether the aim of Christians ought to be to combine the Gospels or to pick one that resonates with us; whether our aim should be to repeat what the Gospel authors said or to follow their example in using language of our time to address questions and issues of our time, just as they did in relation to their own historical setting.
The subject of the creeds came up, and as one might expect in an American Baptist context, voices soon were heard that said, in essence, "Whoa, wait a minute, what are these creeds you're talking about exactly?" The classic creeds of Christian orthodoxy have no precise or official authority for Baptists, and yet they are part of our heritage, ignored and unknown but there as historical influences nonetheless.
Those interested can find the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds here.
Our next subject will be sharing our own answers to the question in Mark's Gospel: Who do we, each of us, say that Jesus is?
We discussed whether the aim of Christians ought to be to combine the Gospels or to pick one that resonates with us; whether our aim should be to repeat what the Gospel authors said or to follow their example in using language of our time to address questions and issues of our time, just as they did in relation to their own historical setting.
The subject of the creeds came up, and as one might expect in an American Baptist context, voices soon were heard that said, in essence, "Whoa, wait a minute, what are these creeds you're talking about exactly?" The classic creeds of Christian orthodoxy have no precise or official authority for Baptists, and yet they are part of our heritage, ignored and unknown but there as historical influences nonetheless.
Those interested can find the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds here.
Our next subject will be sharing our own answers to the question in Mark's Gospel: Who do we, each of us, say that Jesus is?
Friday, December 12, 2008
Evolution Weekend 2009
Dr. McGrath's Sunday school class will touch on the topic of evolution in February 2009, in conjunction with Evolution Weekend. More information will be posted as the time gets closer.
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