Book Review - Rescuing Inerrancy

 

Book Review

Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense

The book, Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense, by Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe (reasons.org), digs into some of the modern controversies surrounding the inerrancy of scripture and the relationship between the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature.  Doctrines that have been long held by the Church up through the 20th century are now being questioned or seriously modified.  This book analyzes some of the reasons and motivations behind this movement, and the author proposes constructive resolutions that don't require throwing away historic Christian doctrines and beliefs.  

This book looks at possible causes of the controversy and then specifically addresses recent views on how to understand the creation accounts in light of modern views on Ancient Near East (ANE) cultures, and also how the widespread acceptance of evolutionary theory is used to justify how these accounts are viewed. Throughout, this book's content dives into some of the historically held doctrines of the Church including: inerrancy, the trustworthiness of Scripture, and the concordance of the two books of General and Special Revelation.  Finally the author presents a case for an integrative approach that preserves both scriptural integrity while allowing freedom to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Inerrancy

Up until recently, the Church fathers and other prominent theologians universally agreed that Genesis was a factual account of material origins, including creation ex nihilo.  Norman Geisler is quoted as saying,  "Inerrancy was indeed believed by Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, and virtually all the great theologians in the history of the Church till modern times."  They had a fundamental belief in concordance between God's dual revelation in scripture and his world.  They believed that the Bible is reliable in all that it reveals.  This is eloquently stated in the Belgic Confession of 1861,

We know him by two means:

First by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God. … 

Second, he makes himself known to us more openly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for his glory and for the salvation of his own.

More recently, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) affirmed that God is the author of all truth, and that there is harmony between general and special revelation.  

Recently, however, some prominent theologians are rejecting this historic view.  In fact they claim that God made accommodations for the human authors of scripture by allowing errors in science and worldviews to be included in their writing.  They claim that the extent of inerrancy is strictly spiritual, like how to serve others or relating to God and his redemptive plan, but not much else.  Some have even denied supernatural miracles in the Bible, claiming they are mere theological stories or have natural explanations.  One formerly conservative professor, Bruce Walke, even goes so far as to say that to deny the reality of biological evolution is "spiritual death" for Christianity.

In other words, they believe that Christians have been mistaken for 2000 years about the truthfulness and reliability of the Bible.  Now we get to pick and choose what parts of the Bible to believe, based on what is plausible or what fits our current understanding of science.  This book strongly opposes that point of view and presents sound reasons why Christians should not abandon the historic doctrine of inerrancy.

ANE Worldview Similarities and Differences

Rescuing Inerrancy addresses the controversy over the content and genre of the creation accounts in the Bible.  It discusses whether or not it is myth, legend, religious stories, mytho-history, or historical narrative.  The claim is that it was never intended to be actual history, and had no concern about material origins, but rather just theological or political.  The scriptural author's writings were firmly grounded in the worldview and cosmogony of the time and look just like other Ancient Near East (ANE) myths.  As a result, even a historical Adam and Eve are considered to be "an anachronism", and just serve as literary devices.  They say that even NT people, such as Jesus and Paul, embraced and taught using these incorrect worldviews.

Hugh Ross, on the other hand, points out that these have long been considered to be in the genre of historical narrative, with poetic or figurative language included.  He makes the case that the differences between ANE and biblical creation accounts are greater than their similarities.  They are radically different given that the Hebrews believed in One God who

• created everything and transcends his creation

• is morally perfect

• began a purposeful progression of history

• uniquely created humans in his image

This book thoroughly documents that ANE science generally thought study of nature was important.  They made observatories and supported astronomers/astrologers, discovered the spherical shape of sun, moon, earth, and even calculated the relative size and distances to sun, moon, and stars.  They were far from ignorant of the natural world and they cared deeply about it, and neither was the author of the creation account.

Concordance

The Church has long held the doctrine of harmony between Scripture and facts of nature.  Only recently has there been significant redefinition, disregard, or denial of concordance.  It appears that this is mainly an overreaction to scientific discoveries and a wish to avoid any possible conflict with naturalistic models.  Because they claim that science is in constant flux, it is wrong to find concordance with scripture that could be embarrassing later on.  This book disagrees with this perspective, and points out that science is better viewed as a series of refinements, as opposed to complete overthrows of knowledge.

Ross takes a different approach, stating that we can view faith and science as either enemies, strangers, or partners.  He believes that partnership is a better way forward, since that enables discovery and keeps dialogue open between men of science and men of strong religious conviction.  We should anticipate that science can inform theology, and theology to inform science.  We can be free to discern between what is debatable and what is firmly established, without being hostile.  In fact, extreme concordance favoring either the scripture or science can be divisive, and a complete disconnect between the two is damaging.  

Moderate concordism recognizes that no one can claim to have a perfect, unbiased interpretation of what the Bible and nature teaches.  It allows respectful dialogue, prevents over- under-interpretation of various passages with respect to science, and makes allowance for the revision of interpretations on both sides.

As an example, the Day Age View, is presented as one compatible view of concordance.  This model has been extensively studied and promoted by the organization Hugh Ross founded, Reasons to Believe (RTB).  He acknowledges that this is not the only view, and that like any model has strengths and weaknesses.  But this model does allow a historical reading of scripture and concordance with natural science, especially when the critical frame of reference in Genesis 1 is realized.  Their testable model approach allows debate and consideration by both religious and scientific audiences.   

A Historical Adam and Eve

In this book, the author claims that the historical Adam and Eve are too important to Christian theology to simply discard based on the objections to concordism.  It is really impossible to cast the claims of Moses, Jesus, and Paul as just reflections of their worldview, and still hold to any reasonable view of the Bible as being the inspired, authoritative Word of God.  

He lists some of the arguments against the historical Adam and Eve, and for a literary version, that is not historically true.  They claim genomics and population dynamics make it implausible under evolutionary models for mankind to have come from a single pair.  Rather than an original pair, there were thousands of individuals and God just chose representatives, and so were not specially created by God.  Some may believe that God miraculously gave them spiritual awareness, while others even deny that, holding to a strictly evolutionary process that God drove behind the scenes.  But if we are not descended from one man and one woman, it is hard to reconcile this with Bible genealogies and other teachings.  

Ross argues that it raises too many problems with existing Christian theology.  What does it even mean that God created man "In his image"?  Does this mean that God gave this likeness and spiritual nature to a non-human hominid that later evolved?  How was it transmitted to the rest of the population?  Are humans truly exceptional or unique in contrast to other hominids?  What implications does this have for salvation, the atonement, original sin, and more?

In Conclusion

This is an important book for the modern church which has already lost believers, compromised doctrines, and appears irrelevant to many.  It is thought provoking and a great "modest defense" of Biblical Inerrancy.  Christianity does not need to discard long-held doctrines in the face of recent theological accommodations of modern scientific interpretations.  Taking a modest concordist approach will lead to better integration between God's two books of revelation, while reducing the heat and conflict.  Christians don't have to fear that they will suddenly find that science conclusively has shown their faith to be disproved, nor does the scientist need to deny his faith while pursuing his studies of nature.  

Book Review - Thinking About Evolution

 

Thinking About Evolution: 25 questions Christians want answered
By AJ Roberts, Fuz Rana, Sue Dykes, and Mark Perez

The multidisciplinary team of authors brings clarity on exactly what evolution is, and what it is not. They examine which aspects of evolution are on sound footing, and where there are legitimate grounds to be skeptical of the evolutionary paradigm. With expertise in molecular biology, biochemistry, paleoanthropology, Christian apologetics, and analytical philosophy, they present a creation model view of interpreting the evidence, comparing and contrasting the scope and explanatory power of this model to current evolutionary models of the origin and development of life on the earth.

I appreciate that the book starts out with a clear definition of Old-Earth Creationism (OEC), sometimes called Progressive Creationism, as clarity is always valuable and helps to head off misunderstandings and straw man arguments.  Reasons to Believe's (RTB) insistence on harmony between Creation and Scripture, or Science and Faith, is biblical and warranted.  It reflects the Creator's character and his revelation to humanity.  

The book includes enough detail on the various subjects to highlight the salient issues at play.  The authors appear to be fair in their evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the various topics.  While they are overall skeptical of the ability of evolution to account for the full diversity and history of life on Earth, they provide balanced expert analysis based on their research experience and training.  

The authors put forth a very important observation: that data, and even science itself, explains nothing, but that it is scientists who explain things!  These explanations are based on interpretations of the evidence, prior knowledge and observations, worldviews and presuppositions, and even the nature of reality.  While facts are things that are true, it may not always be possible to demonstrate with certainty that something is true, even if it is.  Theories and scientific paradigms are put forward by scientists to explain the data and are meant to be tested.  However, it is a dangerous thing to protect certain ideas from being challenged freely (e.g. the modern Theory of Evolution), even if widely accepted.  There is a trend in our society to silence dissent instead of promoting open discussion and not tolerate disagreement.

Another takeaway from the book was that it is critical to define terms like "evolution", "information", or "transitional forms."  For instance, there are several different kinds of naturalistic evolution, each with different levels of empirical support and each based on differing levels of inference.  These include chemical evolution, microevolution, microbial evolution, speciation, and macroevolution.  It is a mistake to conflate the different definitions and then make blanket statements about the truth or falsehood of the subject.

The question/answer format is very useful, as it encourages its use as a reference for those seeking thoughtful answers.  It lends itself readily for small group discussions, as well.  While each topic could easily take up several chapters, the pertinent content is provided, objections are addressed, and references are included for further study.

A valuable side panel in the book discussed different types of reasoning.  These include deductive, inductive, abductive, and defeasible reasoning, and the levels of certainty that we can get from each type. The latter two types may not be as familiar.  Abductive reasoning, also known as inference to the best explanation, is often used by researchers or detectives during investigations.  Defeasible reasoning, or belief revision, is used to amend conclusions, models, explanations, or beliefs when new evidence is given.  

The authors make the point that while most scientists today accept evolution, they still have disagreements over the underlying mechanisms proposed.  In this context, they provide an interesting quote by Thomas Huxley, “In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable."  Huxley disagreed strongly with Darwin on the mechanisms, but still supported the concepts.  

One important question asked in the book, "Is such bulldogged tenacity in clinging to evolution due to the science or to something else?"   I think it is fair to conclude that philosophical naturalism and other worldview considerations are at play.  Science has limits and is not the sole source of truth, so we must integrate experiences, philosophy, and reason, with scientific studies, to get a comprehensive perspective on reality.  Truth is what corresponds to reality!

So, is evolution compatible with Christianity?  The authors conclude "No!"  For example, they ask, "If evolutionary mechanisms can explain everything in biology, what role would there have been for a Creator to play?"  They question that if we were created by unguided, naturalistic processes, then in what way are we special or distinct from other animals?  What purpose is there to life if we are the products of mindless processes?  In what way can we justify the dignity and worth of the individual humans?  Giving up a historical Adam and Eve as the first humans, directly created by God, seems to be too high a theological price and undermines many core Christian doctrines.

This quote gets to the heart of the authors' perspective, "To claim as Crick once did that nature was not designed but rather evolved asserts a belief, not a fact. Those who repeat an assertion of apparent-but-not-real design do not know whether the assertion is true or not. They are not better scientists than those who claim design; they are worse philosophers."  The appearance of design in biological systems is overwhelmingly obvious, so why must there actually be no teleology or design, and hence a Designer?  The authors believe it is not only justified and rational to believe in a Designer, but that such a conclusion is actually the best explanation of the data.

In contrast, I found it very interesting (and surprising) that in the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) there is currently serious discussion of agency being involved in the process.  Agency implies teleology or design.  They are suggesting that since natural selection alone appears to be insufficient to drive the observed changes, that somehow the cell actually acts as an agent in preserving changes that could be useful in the future!  This is provocative to say the least.  

This book is thought provoking and a great overview of the current state of evolutionary theory.  I commend it to anyone who has struggled with integrating their faith with current scientific discoveries.  It is not, and never has been, an either or proposition!

Thinking About Evolution - Publisher Site

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