Here is the initial draft the script for Lesson 15.  Comments welcome! 

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Audio: local Washington DC traffic report

Narrator:What you just heard was a typical traffic report for the Washington D.C. metro area – similar to the one I hear everyday during my commute. Like most traffic reports around the country, this one has elements familiar to most commuters such as: stalled vehicles, road construction and fender benders. But it also includes several distinct elements unfamiliar to those who live outside the metro area. (examples: Beltway, Crystal City, Tyson’s Corner, Woodbridge, the Mixing Bowl, etc…) In other words, there is a built-in assumption that when a report like this is given, those who hear it have a pre-existing worldview that enables them to make sense of it – and thus no further explanation is necessary.

Now, such assumptions are fine when both the report-giver and the report-hearer share the same commuting context, but what if somebody unfamiliar with the D.C. metro area wanted to truly understand our traffic reports? What should they do? If they only study the literal meaning of the verbiage, and attempt to relate the straight-forward meaning of the words and phrases to elements from their own unique commuting environment, they might have a difficult time interpreting it. (examples: Other cities have a “Beltway”; Woodbridge = wooden bridge?; Crystal City = city made of crystals?; numbers represent streets rather than have quantitative value, etc…)

In addition to creating confusion, trying to understand the report apart from the assumed context actually undermines any authority that the report might otherwise have. In other words, if we are really concerned about respecting the integrity of the report and honoring the intent of the author, understanding the assumed context is probably more important than understanding the literal meaning of the verbiage. When we fail to understand the report on its own terms by ignoring the assumed context, we ultimately shift the interpretive reference point away from what the author intended to whatever we think is important.

On the other hand, if we were to set aside our own pre-conceived notions and actually become familiar with the context assumed by the author of the report – well, then we would have a much better chance at actually understanding it. And that would require much more than simply studying the verbiage in the context of one’s own cognitive environment. That would require us to step outside of our usual worldview and immerse ourselves in the cognitive environment shared by the report-giver and the report-hearer.

Now, by refusing to recognize the assumed context, we might think we’re making the traffic report more relevant. After all, if the traffic report is true, then it should apply to any city we choose, right? Isn’t that how we demonstrate the authority of the report – by showing how it relates to each and every city? Of course not. If we use it for a purpose that the author never intended, we actually make it less relevant - not more relevant. Despite our best intentions, a traffic report from Washington D.C. does us no good if we’re commuting in Chicago. If we continue to make that mistake and commuters conclude that the traffic report simply misses the mark, people might stop listening to traffic reports altogether!

In addition to this, understanding the assumptions and expectations of the communication medium is also critical to interpreting the message. On October 30, 1938, the popular American radio drama, Mercury Theatre on the Air, broadcast an episode entitled “War of the Worlds” based on the novel by H.G. Wells. But when the story of alien invasion was adapted for radio broadcast, a medium of communication normally associated with breaking news reports, many people confused the fictional narrative with a live newscast. To make matters worse, the show was presented without commercial interruption using the bulletin-style format normally reserved for radio documentaries, and an actual township in rural New Jersey was used as ground zero of the Martian invasion.

Of the 6 million people who heard the broadcast that afternoon, almost 2 million listeners believed the story to be news rather than entertainment. Widespread panic ensued, especially in the New Jersey area surrounding the events. Some people actually rushed to the site of the disaster to give assistance. Princeton University sent a team of geologists to examine the meteor impact. In the aftermath of the panic, broadcasters were forbidden to use the phrase “we interrupt this program…” unless it was followed by actual breaking news. This is just one example of the importance of making the proper adjustments in our expectations when receiving information through a particular medium. Not only should we avoid filtering the information through an interpretative grid not intended by the author, but we must also understand the nature of the medium used to convey the information.

Now, why is all of this important to our present discussion? Well, if we’re talking about how the Bible relates to our scientific knowledge of the physical universe, then we should first understand the scientific worldview assumed by the scriptures, as well as the epistemological limitations of the literary devices used. If we clumsily impose our culturally-specific scientific worldview onto a text that was authored from within a different cognitive environment than our own, then not only do we risk missing the point of the Scriptures, but we also undermine biblical authority by shifting the interpretative reference point away from what the human authors intended, to whatever it is we happen to think is important at the time.

When believers are faced with the sobering reality that Christian folk-science is demonstrably false, and we realize how some of those very ideas we’ve rejected in the name of Christ actually work quite well in the laboratory and out in the field, the primary concern is naturally the impact this all has on the nature and scope of biblical authority. After all, it was our attempt to defend the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture that initially drove us to fabricate alternatives to mainstream science in the first place. But what if there was an approach we could take to issues of science and faith in the classroom that — not only allowed us to teach our children useful scientific concepts that granted them access to the community of professional scientists, but was also more effective at upholding and protecting the authority of Scripture? If such a thing were possible, shouldn’t that be the preferred method of instruction used by Christian parents and teachers?

When faced with a passage of Scripture that appears to teach something contrary to the scientific consensus, many Christians feel that there are only two possible ways to faithfully resolve the conflict: Option (1) is to make adjustments to the scientific consensus so that it concords with the straight-forward reading of the biblical text in question. Option (2) is to make adjustments to our interpretation of scripture so that it concords with the scientific consensus. But these are really just two sides of the same coin, known as concordism – the view that a proper interpretation of scripture will always be in harmony with our contemporary scientific understanding of the physical universe.

Most Christian science curricula are an inconsistent blend of these two concordist approaches. While the intent behind concordism is to uphold biblical authority in the realm of physical science, it ironically has the exact opposite effect. For instance, if we make demonstrably false claims based on a certain interpretation and application of Scripture, we create scientific stumbling blocks that undermine biblical authority. Remember how many people viewed the Bible after the Church lost its battle with Galileo over the physical arrangement of the solar system. But fabricating novel interpretations of scripture so that a passage can agree with whatever contemporary science says also undermines biblical authority. Once we do this, the Scriptures can mean whatever we want them to mean. There is got to be a better way – and in fact, there is.

Consider this: throughout history, most theologians have upheld the notion that God’s method of biblical inspiration somehow utilized the purposes and intentions of the human authors. This makes the authors’ immediate (or timely) intent our most accessible link to God’s ultimate (or timeless) intent. So if the Holy Spirit speaks to 21st century western Christians indirectly through the cognitive environment shared by the original audience and human authors, then filtering God’s written word through contemporary scientific paradigms – as demanded by the concordist approach – is unlikely to give us the true meaning of the biblical text – any more than we can properly understand a city’s traffic report apart from any knowledge about the city itself.

In fact, when using the concordist approach, we run the risk of either (1) missing the point of the text entirely, or (2) reading meaning into the text that would have made no sense to those generations of God’s people who committed his word to writing. Either way, once we set aside the author’s concerns and replace them with the interpreter’s concerns, we diminish the very process carried out by the Holy Spirit to bring God’s word to us. And in doing so, we unknowingly usurp the very authority that we were trying to desperately to uphold.

So if we really want to understand the relationship between science and the scriptures, why not stop pressuring the biblical text to answer the kinds of questions that modern post-Enlightenment Western Christians tend to ask, and instead see the creation narrative through ancient Near-Eastern eyes? Is this even possible? Only if we set aside about 3500 years of scientific baggage and immerse ourselves in the pre-scientific world of the ancients.

Through archeological studies of other ANE documents and pyramid texts that circulated around the time the Scriptures were written, we actually know a great deal about the scientific worldview of the ANE: this includes both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures – the two people-groups that closely interacted with the Hebrews. Now here is something that many Christians have probably never thought about: the people of God who originally received the Scriptures were no more advanced scientifically than the contemporary cultures surrounding them. Their ability to gather data was limited to the same powers of naked-eye observation from the same terrestrial vantage point as the other Semitic cultures of the ancient Near East. And as a result, the Hebrew model of the physical cosmos would have been structurally very similar to that of their pagan neighbors, except where God had revealed otherwise.

That might seem like an odd fact to dwell on, but consider this: the only way God’s people could have known of an alternate cosmology would have been for God to directly reveal it to them; and had this been God’s intent, the creation account of Genesis would have been the ideal place to do such a thing. But rather than correct the popular misconceptions that the universe consists of three levels: the heavens, the earth and the underworld, or that Earth is a disk or rectangle spread out over a watery abyss, or that these same subterranean waters flow around and above the heavenly bodies, or that the sky is a solid dome regulating the passage of precipitation, wind, and celestial objects through the expanse of heaven, or that the sun passes through the underworld after leaving the heavens each night to hasten back to the opposite end of the firmament, Moses and the other biblical authors instead use these same basic elements, which were all part of the popular cosmology of the day, as the assumed context from which to tell God’s wonderful story of creation. The ancient Near-eastern concept of heaven and earth is literally the cosmological stage upon which the drama of creation, the fall, and redemption unfolds.

Modern Christians don’t like this idea. It just feels like a spineless concession to literary criticism. Since our modern materialistic worldview demands that all truth be expressed in exact scientific terms, anything that looks or smells like ancient mythology is instantly given a lower status on the truth scale, and deemed unworthy for God to use as an inspired medium of revelation. But this attitude is really nothing more than epistemological bigotry – it assumes that less scientifically advanced cultures are incapable of expressing ultimate truth in acceptable terms.

Unfortunately, these same cultural differences can derail our attempts to properly understand the Scriptures. For example, according to the modern western scientific worldview, structures don’t exist unless they are first built. Any discussion, therefore, about something being created must, of course, address the individual structural sub-components and the exact step-by-step sequence of their assembly. And since different substances have different physical properties that dictate how objects interact with each other and their environment, things ultimately operate according to their physical structure and material composition.

Now don’t get me wrong; this is all well and good. In fact, it’s great! The scientific worldview enables mankind to build a spacecraft from materials found in the earth’s crust, send people for a stroll on the lunar surface, and bring them back alive. But our modern scientific worldview is a lousy framework for interpreting scripture. If we approach the creation narrative with this same set of mechanistic presuppositions, something that would have been completely foreign to the ancient near-eastern cognitive environment, we are guaranteed to miss the entire point of it.

Just because some of our questions might appear to have “biblical” answers – doesn’t mean we are right to ask them. If the questions themselves are invalid, then we can’t assume the answers are something that God intended. Recall the controversy over the relative motion of the earth and sun: if we pressure the biblical text to answer the question, we will get a biblical answer. At least 67 times, the sun is reported to move or the earth is described as motionless. So there is an answer waiting for us if we ask the question, but is the question valid? Did God intend for us to use his word to settle matters of physical science?

For the Hebrew wandering through the wilderness, cosmic functions were not primarily the consequence of material structure, but rather of divine purposes. There were no epistemological distinctions between science and theology in the ANE. If it rained enough to keep the crops watered, the gods were pleased. If rain was withheld or if it rained too much, the gods were angry. And something did not exist until it was assigned a purpose and given a name. For instance, the clay at the bottom of the river didn’t exist until somebody dug it up and fashioned it into a vessel that served a particular purpose. As long it remained in the earth undisturbed, it was considered part of the primordial formlessness from which all things were fashioned. So creation of the cosmos had less to do with the gods building structures, and more to do with the gods assigning function and purpose to that which was formless and filling that which was void. And the gods accomplished these tasks by re-organizing the primordial chaos so the cosmos could accomplish its intended purpose – just as a potter fashions a vessel from the primordial clay.

Consequently, the best way to understand Genesis – or any ANE creation account for that matter – is not to ask questions like “what was built, when was it built, in what order was it built, or how long did it take to build” – structure and chronology were beside the point. The questions we should be asking are “what deities are responsible for organizing each of the essential functions of the cosmos and how can we be certain the cosmos will not return to a state of formlessness and emptiness?” That is certainly how the original audience of Genesis would have understood the Hebrew creation narrative.

For the Semitic peoples of the ANE, all of the pagan creation myths began with a watery abyss that symbolized chaos, formlessness and emptiness – the complete absence of orderly cosmic function. This was seen as the default state of the universe: chaos was the opposite of cosmos. As such, the biblical creation narrative wouldn’t have been recognized as a creation narrative unless it also first started with the primordial waters and addressed the origin of these same cosmic functions – which Genesis 1 clearly does. But the ancient pagan gods of Israel’s neighbors were forced to divvy up the cosmic functions amongst themselves, and they were pretty unreliable when it came to the administration of their respective domains.

From Egypt to Nineveh, the essential functional elements of the cosmos – such as the passing of time, changes in the weather, the seasons, the generational cycle of birth and death, astronomical phenomena, etc — were each assigned to a different god or goddess. It was the responsibility of the deities to ensure the orderly operation of the “natural” forces under their control. Without the constant attention of the gods, it was believed that nature would fall back into chaos and disorder – a return to the primordial state of emptiness and formlessness that preceded creation.

Now why was this delicate balance between chaos and cosmos so important to ancient people? It might seem strange at first, but only because modern western man lives a life that is relatively isolated from the raw forces of nature. We might have to contend with an occasional hurricane, earthquake or tornado, but we have insurance to cover the losses and we generally know what causes these things and when they are coming. Ancient man, however, lived in constant fear of nature. Without the protection of the gods, the universe would literally cave in on them.

For a primitive tribe of nomads who just walked away from the relative stability of Egyptian civilization and was heading into the chaos of the wilderness, understanding who controls the same forces of nature that will determine the outcome of their journey was a big deal. In fact, it was such a big deal that many would have gladly remained as slaves under the protection of Egypt’s gods than face the uncertainty of the wilderness. So God unleashed the forces of natural destruction – in the form of plagues – on Egypt to encourage the Israelites to turn from Egypt’s gods and trust in Him alone. But even then, as soon as the Israelites felt the hunger pains of nature’s pitiless indifference, they turned against Moses and begged Egypt’s gods to deliver them.

In light of the current events surrounding the writing of Genesis, how should we expect Moses to deliver the only true creation account? By what benchmark would the newly-liberated Hebrew people have judged the relevance, truth and reliability of Genesis? By what benchmark should we judge the relevance, truth and reliability of Genesis today? Is it realistic to expect Moses to have given us a peer-reviewed technical article on Big Bang cosmology? How about a lucid explanation of the effect of dark matter and dark energy on cosmic expansion? Would a full-color picture of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation have impressed the stubborn Hebrews who were unsure of where their next meal would come from? How about the realization that the cosmos stretches at least 12 billion light-years in every direction; or that 13.7 billion years of cosmic history had preceded them? Would any of this cosmic trivia have been even the least bit comforting? Probably not. While such things might appropriately fascinate a 21st century Western audience whose mechanistic worldview predisposes them to inquire about material structure and the chronology of assembly, it would have done nothing for an ancient Near-Eastern audience who thought – not in the mechanical terms of ordinary causes – but in the teleological terms of ultimate causes.

Not surprisingly, this is exactly what a plain face-value reading of Genesis reveals when we set aside our modern worldview and see the text with ancient eyes. We clearly see God establishing the essential functions of the cosmos, setting in motion day and night, separating the waters above the heavens from the waters below, spreading out the firmament to regulate the passage of moisture, wind, and celestial bodies through the sky, watering the land, causing vegetation to grow and seed to sprout, causing the seas and skies and land to bring forth life, and creating man in His own image – not to tirelessly work the land and grow food for the lazy gods (as in the Mesopotamian creation story) but to exercise stewardship of creation and to subdue the land for the glory of Yahweh!

In addition to accommodating the creation narrative to the scientific worldview of the original audience, the infinite wisdom of God can also be seen in the way Moses intentionally avoids introducing new cosmic structures and functions. Not only would any new science have distracted his audience from the theological points being made, a scientific portrait of creation would have needed updating every few hundred years or so – or whenever scientific discovery sheds new light on our finite understanding of God’s universe. And once revelation is sealed, who would have the authority to do this? But by limiting the creation narrative to a discussion about God organizing and establishing the essential functions of the cosmos, Moses gives us a timeless account that transcends the scientific consensus of any particular generation – truly making the creation narrative relevant to all generations! After all, the rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon, the circuit of heavenly bodies through the constellations, the changing of the seasons, the biological succession of Earth’s flora and fauna after their kind are all ongoing processes that every generation of God’s people can easily relate to – regardless of their technological advancement or lack thereof.

In his book, Letter to a Christian Nation, atheist Sam Harris states that if the Bible were really God’s word, it would contain information that no ancient person could have possibly known about, like the invention of the world-wide web. He writes that something worthy of being called the “Word of God” should contain a passage like,

In the latter half of the twentieth century, humankind will develop a globally linked system of computers – the principles of which I set forth in Leviticus – and the system shall be called the Internet. (Page 60).

Most Christians obviously understand how utterly ridiculous such a demand would be. What does the internet have to do with the concerns of ancient Hebrews or first century gentiles? And what about 1000 years from now when nobody even remembers what the internet was? Should we really expect the Bible to include bits of culturally-relevant trivia just so 21st century Christians can trust it? Is that we are to know God’s Word is true and relevant? Of course not - that’s what almanacs and encyclopedias are for! Yet, many of us unknowingly approach Genesis with this same mindset. We assume that something worthy of being called the Word of God must contain a certain amount of accurate scientific trivia or it loses its authority. So we comb through the Scripture looking for answers to scientific questions like the habitability of the Antipodes, the motion of the heavenly bodies, or the age of the earth.

If the purpose of Christian education is to prepare our graduates to achieve excellence in any professional community, then this should obviously include natural sciences as well. But in order to actually achieve this, we can’t cripple our children by feeding them repackaged ANE-science in the name of Jesus. We must be willing to give our students the tools necessary to walk into any laboratory around the world and participate in wherever science goes next. Or they should at least be able to study science at the college level without losing their faith in the process. That means putting away the folk-science and teaching them the accepted paradigms that have earned the overwhelming consensus of professional scientists around the world.

One of the reasons I created this video series, and made it available free on the internet, is to help get people thinking about these things. So please feel free to share this with others. Also, if you would like to get this series on DVD to show in a group setting, please contact me on my website: www.beyondthefirmament.com. My name is Gordon J. Glover – thanks for watching!

Last weekend, we left the D.C. Metro area and headed a couple hours west to the caves of western Virginia.  The geology of the Blue Ridge caverns is truly amazing.  The ancient Grenville mountain range was thrust up over 1 billion years ago by the collision of the North American plate and the ancient continent of Baltica, which formed the ancient supercontinent of Rhodina.  These mountains were eventually worn down torn apart by the subsequenct division of Rhodina, which opened up rifts in the earth’s crust from which lava welled up and filled in the valleys.

About 500 million years ago, the area was shoved under the ancient sea of Iapetus by plate tectonics and the remnants of the Grenville mountains were turned into granite under the intense heat and pressure.  Around 300 million years ago, the region was again the site of mountain building as the North American and North African continents collided to form the supercontinent of Pangaea.  The granite from the Grenville mountains, the igneous rock from the lave flows, and the layers of sediment from the Iapetus seabed (which recorded the Cambrian explosion), were folded and twisted into the patterns we see today. 

These mounts would have been as grand as the Himalayas are today.  But after 200 million years of erosion and the break up Pangaea, the modern Appalachians are all that’s left.  The different layers sitting at different angles eroded at different rates, producing the ridges, mountains, and valleys we have today.  The modern Blue Ridge represents the relative stubbornness of granite when threatened with erosion by the elements.  Pockets of water within the mountains were formed when these layers separated form one another while the earth’s crust was being folded.  As the mountains were thrust upward above the water table, the sub-terranian voids were drained.  Water from melting snow and glaciers then dripped through the empty caverns forming the incredible scenery that attracts so many tourists today.

But the ecology of the caverns is even more fascinating than their geology.  There is a white, sightless species of centipede that lives in the caves — that live only in THESE caves.  Naturally, they are close relatives of the species of pigmented, sighted centipedes that live in the area — just the sort of observation we should expect to make if evolution were true.  In fact, evolution predicts just this sort of thing.  A species begins to take up residence in a cave, slowly loses it need for pigmentation or sight.  It eventually moves deeper into the cave, becomes isolated from the ancestral population outside the cave, accumulates enough gene shuffling to prevent interbreeding with the other groups, and voilla — a new species is created. 

If the closest living relative of this Virginia cave centipede was an Australian centipede, then evolution would have some ’splainin to do!  But as it stands, everything is right where it should be.  Biogeography is a powerful scientific model that only makes sense in light of evolution — because it is a necessary consequence of evolution.  In the language of logic, evolution is both a necessary and sufficient cause of the observed patterns of biogeography: not only does evolution necessarily explain biogeography, but the theory is sufficient to predict general patterns of biogeography without ever leaving your house!  That is the power of a useful scientific model.

So what is the creationist interpretation of our centipede?  How could such an obvious data point on the trajectory of evolution be explained?  Anyone who has ever had a swimming pool knows what happens when centipedes fall into the water — they drown.  So presumably, Noah took a couple of centipedes on the Ark with him.  Actually, he took a few more than that.  Within the 2 subclasses and 5 orders of centipedes that populate the earth, there are about 8,000 distinct species of centipede.  As if cruising around with that many centipedes on a boat for a year did not stretch credibility enough, the idea that a single species crawled off a mountain in Turkey and took up residence in a cave somewhere in Virginia — without stopping and leaving any evidence along the way is laughable.  And by the way, without pigment or sight, it would have required a miracle to survive just the journey down from the mountain.  But as long as we have an unlimited supply of miracles to throw at the problems created by a recent global flood, why not just open up a divine wormhole connecting Mt. Ararat with the Endless Caverns?  Or why not temporarily give centipedes gills or flippers to survive the ocean?  Or why not grant a special dispensation of “superevolution” so that millions of species can rapidly evolve from only a few created kinds?  Or why not (insert your favorite unscientific speculation here)…?

Is this what science is reduced to for Conservative Christians?  Speculating on what ad-hoc miracles are needed to preserve every physical detail of a biblical narrative – which itself is based on a miracle?  In contrast to evolution, the story of Noah’s Ark is neither a neccesary nor a sufficient cause of the current state of affairs.  Not only does it fail to explain what we see, but the model actualy predicts a biogeography that doesn’t exist!  The population of Earth from species radiating from modern day Turkey should give a very distinct pattern of biogeography — but we can’t find THAT pattern.  For instance, it is commonly known that the greatest genetic diversity of a species exists at its geographic origin.  But there is nothing genetically significant about the flora and fauna of Turkey. 

In mainstream scientific circles where reputations are based on integrity, something this obvious would be enough to falsify the Noahic flood as a scientific model (which is a bad assumption that Christians bring to scriptures).  But not so in creationist folk-science circles, where you can just keep throwing miracles at your problems until they go away.

I’m having an interesting discussion over at “Young Earth Creationists Anonymous” with my Christian-turned-atheist friend, Tom.  Being raised in the apologetical tradition of presuppositionalism, the problem of evil was never really a problem for me.  In other words, I was never forced to wrestle with it like those who are testing the waters of theism.  But as I become more scientifically informed, I have to question (or revisit) more of my traditional Christian upbringing - especially those doctrines which were formulated during a time when the 6,000 year-old earth was thought to hang suspended in mid-air while the heavens whirled about it.  As a result of this serious reflection, skepticism, and doubt, I’ve had to let go of some things while my faith in other areas has become stronger.

A scientifically-informed view of God’s providence is somewhat nuanced from the traditional reformed view.  The overwhelming majority of providence falls into the category that has been traditionally known as ordinary providence.  The regular patterns of material behavior, which I refer to in BTF as the patterns of providence, are the means by which God’s providence ordinarily manifests itself.  I believe that ordinary providence is all that God needs to manage the internal affairs of the material cosmos.  I believe that everything that happens in this world, right down to our thoughts and emotions, is a consequence of mater in motion.  As my friend Tom says, “…a particular dance of molecules…” can produce abstract feelings like pain, pleasure, and empathy.  I have no problem with that.  But rather than remove God from the process, ordinary providence reveals God continually upholding and sustaining the cosmos so that even something as complex as this neuro-dance is intentionally choreographed to produce our concept of individual “self”.

As offensive as it is to some Christians, that the cosmos could gradually arrange itself in a step-wise fashion to produce this level of organic complexity from the primordial chaos without any discontinuity (after the initial singularity) in the laws of nature is one of the most beautiful truths science can reveal.  It shows us a creator who can sink each ball on the break, rather than one who must contemplate each shot based on the outcome of the previous shot, or one that has to move some balls around when nobody is looking as creationism demands.  For the theist, such a beautiful emergence and evolution of life from inanimate matter is no accident.  When God brought the cosmos into existence from nothing, it had no choice but to reflect the order and character of its creator.  Since these same forces ultimately led our existence, the character of the universe — and thus the character of God — is hardwired into us!  This is traditionally known as the “image of God” in man — which is still a useful phrase even though it has its roots in a less scientifically-informed creation account.

This explains not only our deep connection with the rest of the cosmos, but how we think God’s thought after him.  Our thoughts, emotions and ability to create are but a clumsy shadow of God’s attributes, imparted to us through a natural order that also reflects that same character.  For instance, we all reason based on a common set of rational principles that are part of the fabric of spacetime.  We all share the same basic moral context.  We all have the same sense of what is right, what is fair, what is just — even though we might split hairs over the particulars (usually because of religious differences).  Nobody voted on these unwritten laws of reason and morality.  They are just there.  And we know when we’ve got them right because they resonate with the rest of the created order.

However, if God’s providence were strictly limited to that which we call ”ordinary” then theism would really be deism.  But in the Christian tradition, the creative and sustaining force behind the cosmos (aka: God) actually puts on flesh, is born through a woman, subjects himself to the human condition, and experiences all of the same pain, suffering, injustice, unfairness, hate and evil that mankind can dish out.  He didn’t do this to free us from the harsh realities of the physical world, or provide us an escape from reality.  HE DID THIS TO LEGITIMIZE/ENDORSE THE INEVITABLE REALITIES OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD BY PARTAKING OF THEM HIMSELF!

Now back to the problem of evil.  There is an underlying assumption that tragedy is something that God ought to spare us from.  Thus, when accidents happen for no apparent reason, we shake our fists at heaven and ask questions like, “where was God!” or “why didn’t God intervene?”  But let’s think about this for a minute.  What would life be like if all creatures were insulated from tragedy?  What if we were all protected from the ordinary patterned behavior of the physical cosmos (necessity) and the sometimes foolish, careless, or evil choices of others (contingency) by a divine force-field?  Could we have ever evolved in a world without pain, suffering, cruelty or death?  Could we have ever reached this point in our journey if life was without risk or reward?  Or if cause and effect were not certain?  Life if beautiful because of these things!  We cherish every moment because our existence is fleeting, not because it is free from danger or insulated from tragedy.

So the answer to the question of “where was God?” is this: “He was right there all along — sustaining and upholding the very laws of nature that conspired against our continued existence!”  After all, whether we die in a horrible accident, or live to be 100, we all eventually fall victim to ordinary providence.  Now, invoking ordinary providence might seem like a cop-out.  But what else, in his infinite goodness, should we expect God to do?  As somebody who leans heavily Libertarian politically, the government that governs best, governs least.  I don’t want the state to baby-sit me.  I don’t want to be shielded from my own stupidity and not be allowed to dare, to risk, or to carve my own path.  Obviously we should, as much as possible, be protected from the carelessness, stupidity, and evil of others through laws that punsh evil.  But there is little a law can do to directly protectly you from evil (which is why I support the 2nd amendment).  Likewise, the blessings of cosmic liberty suggest that God is right to let the chips fall, even when they crush us.  That’s the deal.  And I doubt that anybody who shakes their fist at God would much appreciate living in a “padded-cell” cosmos governed by a “nanny” God who never lets us play outside in the mud.

There are many form of theism, but it’s the answer to the other question that is uniquely Christian.  The answer to the question of “why didn’t God intervene?” is this: God did intervene — He put on human flesh and shared the best and the worst of the human experience with us!  The Cross goes well beyond sympathy or empathy - which is the extent of our human response to suffering and tragedy.  At Calvary, the creator of the cosmos identifies with our suffering by voluntarily subjecting himself to tragedy.  And being raised from the grave and appearing to many, we can accept death, suffering and tragedy as a necessary part of the deal.  And neither is death the end of the road.

So the “problem of evil” is really not a problem for Christians.  At least we have a context that can objectively identify it — even if it doesn’t always make sense to us.  The “problem of evil” is more of a problem for those who reject the idea that we are a necessary consequence of a cosmos intentionally designed to produce beings whose thoughts reflect the character of God himself.  Apart from this, something like “evil” has no objective context.  Concepts like evil, pain, suffering, unfairness and injustice have no universal meaning unless they preceded us.  If they are ultimately fabrications of our own social convenience, then we can conveniently change them or ignore them whenever it suits us.  And why should tragedy even bother us?  Why should injustice outrage us?  Why should we feel sick when we visit the Holocaust Museum?  I can see more carnage across the mall at the Natural History Museum.  There was far greater loss of life during the Chicxulub impact 65 million years ago than all the wars of man combined.  Does anybody lose their lunch over that tragedy?  So why does a tiny room full of shoes have the power to move us?  As long as we still have time to spread our genes, why should we care?  Why get outraged?  “Evil” then, is just some sappy sentiment that theists use to scare people into altering their behavior.  In a universe governed by blind, pitiless indifference, why should we worry about evil?

Here is part 2 of the original Lesson 11, which was so long I broke it up into two lessons — which is why this one says lesson 12.  This IS the last “beta” version posting of my education series.  The original lesson 12, which was supposed to be a wrap-up, wasn’t really that great.  So when I release the final versions, the closing lesson (which will be #15) will be something new.  However, when I return from vacation I will post a script for comment so there will be no surprises.  If you recall from earlier discussions, the new lesson 15 will focus on our handling of Scripture in the context of science education.  I actually think that will wrap up the series better than  my original ending, which was basically a summary of the previous lessons.

Now to this video: I had a lot of fun writing the script for this one, but now that I see it all cut together, I’m not sure if all the pieces and parts are worthy of keeping.  It might come across to some as a rant against ID, which I guess it is.  The first 5 min are fine, but I’d like to get some reader feedback on the last 3 min — over the top?  There is another direction I could have taken after the opening argument and I’m tempted to revisit it (how the design inference has historically paralyzed scientific investigation).  But if everybody likes it as-is, then I’ll leave it.  I could probably do both and still keep it under 10 min.

One quick note: I make a tongue-in-cheek parody of how ID could be used during a forensic crime scene investigation, but I didn’t chose my words well.  I said something like, “What if a body is found with a knife stuck in the chest, and there is no apparent evidence that a murder took place?”  I think finding a body with a protruding knife is by itself evidence of foul-play, unless of course the victim was running with a knife, tripped and fell on it.  I should have said something like, “What if a body is found with a stab wound but there is no apparent evidence pointing to a killer?”

Also keep in mind, on the night that I shot all of these (back in June), it was probably 1 or 2 in morning by the time I got to this lesson.  So while it appears as though I may have sampled some of the “happy juice” referred to earlier in the series (the type made by ordinary providence), I’m actually wicked-tired.  (Note to self, do not attempt to shoot entire series in one night, fix the lighting, and don’t stand so close to the green screen).

Yesterday I was made aware of this site that contains many great EC resources.  Lots of stuff to explore.

http://sites.google.com/a/drvinson.net/science/