Albert Mohler on Parellel Cultures, Karl Giberson, Randall Stephens and Liberal Theology

Albert Mohler has also weighed in on the “parallel cultures” idea that was floated by Karl Giberson and Randall Stephens in their New York Times story. Initially, I did not address the Giberson/Stephens article in the NYT but will now do so. Mohler writes:

The New York Times recently found themselves taken to task by writers presenting themselves as fellow evangelicals. Their essay reveals the central question that evangelicals must now answer: Do we really believe that the Bible is the Word of God?

Actually, that is not what Giberson and Stephens are about in the least. Mohler takes a sort of ‘Ken Hammish’ approach here (and I don't mean this in a positive way) by suggesting broadly that the concern that Giberson and Stephens are voicing is not really why evangelicals are anti-science but rather that they have rejected belief in the Bible. Let's see what Giberson and Stephens actually write:

Like other evangelicals, we accept the centrality of faith in Jesus Christ and look to the Bible as our sacred book, though we find it hard to recognize our religious tradition in the mainstream evangelical conversation. Evangelicalism at its best seeks a biblically grounded expression of Christianity that is intellectually engaged, humble and forward-looking. In contrast, fundamentalism is literalistic, overconfident and reactionary.

This sounds perfectly reasonable. Why would Mohler paint it as a rejection of the Bible? Let's read on to find out. In the original New York Times article, Giberson and Stephens argue as their central point that modern evangelicals and GOP candidates are ‘anti-science’ but then make an odd mis-step. They profile some modern leaders of the modern evangelical movement, including Ken Ham (fish? barrel?), David Barton (who rather hilariously argued that the founding fathers of the country had already addressed and rejected the theory of evolution) and James Dobson, who, they argue, has outdated ideas about homosexuality and actually agrees with spanking children and...

...(!)

Come again? What has any of that to do with their central premise? From my point of view, not much. Further, it opens them up to Dr. Mohler, who blasts away with both barrels. He writes:

Appearing on the October 20, 2011 edition of National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation program, Giberson argued that homosexuality should not be much of a concern at all. He revealed even more of his own approach to the Bible by asserting that “there’s just a handful of proof text[s] scattered throughout the Bible about homosexuality,” adding: “Jesus said absolutely nothing about it.”

That hardly represents an honest or respectful approach to dealing with the Bible’s comprehensive and consistent revelation concerning human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. Is Romans 1, for example, just a scattered proof text? Is not all of the Bible God’s Word? Well, Giberson has already made his view of the Bible clear — it is simply “trumped” by science when describing the natural world.

For your average evangelical, who is familiar with passages in the Old Testament:

Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable. (Leviticus 18: 22)

and in the New Testament:

We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. (1 Timothy: 1:10-11)

it is pretty hard to square that what Giberson is saying is scriptural in any sense.

Why is the passage on homosexuality a problem? It is a problem because if Mohler can show that Giberson and Stephens are not scripturally sound in this area, why should they be believed on the subject of science in general and evolution in specific? Is it not just another aspect of their secular viewpoint?

Whether or not there are arguments for interpreting the above verses in a different way than the way they come across is practically irrelevant here. Giberson and Stephens might just as well have donned bright red Star Trek ‘Enterprise Security’ shirts. It does not matter that Mohler knows little about evolutionary biology, the fossil record, or the geological record. That is no longer the issue at hand. The issue at hand is the “secular knowledge” that is being espoused by Giberson and Stephens, which is at odds with the vast majority of evangelicals. In one swift move, Mohler is able to link acceptance of evolution with liberal teaching on homosexuality. After reading Giberson's and Stephens' New York Times essay, why would your average evangelical even think about changing their minds about evolution?

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Albert Mohler Takes on BioLogos

Over At Albert Mohler's blog, he has a post titled: “No Buzzing Little Fly — Why the Creation-Evolution Debate is So Important”. His is a response to Darrel Falk's end of the year BioLogos message, which can be found here. He quotes Falk as writing:

Dr. Mohler, giant as he is in fundamentalist/evangelical circles, represents a view that takes on the entire scientific enterprise. To this day, I have not been able to identify a single person who holds a science faculty position in any Biology, Geology or Physics Department at any secular research university in the world who would agree with Dr. Mohler’s view of creation. Not one, out of what I imagine are tens of thousands, including many who are strongly committed to living the Christian life in the context of fully orthodox Christian theology... Scientific knowledge is not deeply flawed and we cannot allow ourselves to be led down this pathway any longer.

To this, Mohler responds:

That is nothing less than a manifesto for scientism. Science, as a form of knowledge, is here granted a status that can only be described as infallible. The dangers of this proposal are only intensified when we recognize that “scientific knowledge” is not even a stable intellectual construct. Nevertheless, these words do reveal why BioLogos pushes its agenda with such intensity.

This is a very simplistic view of science and its goals and if Dr. Mohler thought long and hard about it, I believe he would agree. Airplanes work because of scientific knowledge. Cars work because of scientific knowledge. We know that there are eight planets in the solar system (and one plutoid) because of scientific knowledge. Science has been responsible for almost everything that we know of the natural universe. As They Might Be Giants would say: “Science is Real!”

To say that the scientific enterprise is infallible just because someone else says that it isn't a fundamentally flawed endeavor is nonsense. (Aside: when you quote someone, it is customary to include the link to the piece from which you are quoting. Dr. Mohler did not afford Dr. Falk this courtesy.)

Science is not truth. But it does give us a window into the mind of God through the study of his creation. The scientific enterprise is the best way that we have of understanding the universe around us in a physical sense. Such an endeavor does not amount to “scientism” and when Reverend Mohler suggests otherwise, it makes one wonder if he does not truly understand what science is about.

Mohler continues:

The entire intellectual enterprise of evolution is based on naturalistic assumptions, and I do not share those presuppositions. Indeed, the entire enterprise of Christianity is based on supernaturalistic, rather than merely naturalistic, assumptions. There is absolutely no reason that a Christian theologian should accept the uniformitarian assumptions of evolution. In fact, given a plain reading of Scripture, there is every reason that Christians should reject a uniformitarian presupposition. The Bible itself offers a very different understanding of natural phenomena, with explanations that should be compelling to believers.

The enterprise of evolution is based on scientific observation of God's creation. There are no naturalistic assumptions made about evolution that are not made about all of the rest of God's creation. Are naturalistic assumptions present in a weather forecast? Those are derived from scientific models. Part of the reason that they work is because of these self, same uniformitarian assumptions to which Reverend Mohler is so adamantly opposed.

The “different” understanding of natural phenomena that Reverend Mohler offers reflects a flat reading of scripture, without symbolic imagery, or grandeur. It offers, consequently, a non-existent, fantasy creation, a world that never was and exists only in the minds of young-earth creation supporters and theologians like Reverend Mohler. When this theological construct encounters the real world, it either crumbles or retreats into its shell by arguing that only spiritual truth is real truth. This simply isn't so. Spiritual truth is God's truth but so is physical truth. The evidence that our universe is very old will not go away and, unless the vast majority of science is completely and utterly mistaken, it will never reveal a world such as that envisioned by the young earth model.

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Karl Giberson Responds to Albert Mohler

Karl Giberson has responded to the article by Albert Mohler, in which he argued that our modern understanding of science is a corruption of our walk with God and that we do not see the universe as it really is. We see a corrupted, fallen version of it. According to Dr. Mohler, we must read the scriptures as they are written and, in instances in which it seems to conflict with science, we must insist on scripture being correct. Gilberson responds:

I hope that you are wrong when you say that there can be no reconciliation, for I fear for our church if simple education in well-established scientific ideas becomes a well-lighted exit from our faith. To perpetuate this either/or choice is to guarantee that this exit will continue to be filled with disillusioned young people.

Giberson is absolutely correct, here. As Mark Noll wrote, the scandal of the evangelical mind is there isn't one. We cannot afford to abdicate our responsibilities to the scientific community just because we might disagree with some of them on their theological positions. Giberson also notes what I wrote in the last post, that Mohler is unaware of his own theological positions:

You seem to equate your understanding of how the Bible should be read with plain-fact Christian orthodoxy. There we must part ways, and I suspect that at the end of the day, this may be the real point of contention. I do not think that I am showing how much doctrine Christianity has to surrender, but how problematic fundamentalist literalism is for engaging science. But even this may imply more disagreement than there needs to be.

This literal, flat reading of scripture, despite having its own inconsistencies, becomes an end to itself. In the end, it is hard not to come away from reading people like Mohler, Ken Ham, John Morris and others that they are not nearly as concerned with whether or not you have accepted Christ as whether or not you believe in a young earth.

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Albert Mohler on the Age of the Earth

A bit back, Albert Mohler posted a talk on the BioLogos site titled Why Does the Universe Look So Old? In it, he writes:

Well, we have limited options. Number one: Maybe the universe looks so old because it is so old. Option number two: Maybe the universe looks very old, but it is not actually so old as it looks. There could be perhaps a third option or any number of derivatives in which you simply say, “We can’t answer the question.” Or there would be some who would say, “The question isn’t important.” Now I’m going to suggest to you this morning that the question is extremely important and that it is one for which we must be ready to give an answer.

I can think of a large number of Christians who would disagree with this answer. There are many "day-agers" out there for which this is not an issue. In fact, this is only is a problem with the modern evangelical movement. He continues:

Coming at the midpoint of the 19^th century, we need to be reminded that Darwin was not the first evolutionist. We need to be reminded that Darwin did not embark upon the Beagle having no preconceptions of what exactly he was looking for or having no theory of how life emerged in all of its diversity, fecundity, and specialization. Darwin left on his expedition to prove the theory of evolution.

Mohler presents no evidence to back this up. In fact, Darwin was aware of the evolutionary suppositions of both John Ray and Jean Baptiste Lamarck but was still committed to fixity of species when he went on board the Beagle. He wasn't committed to anything other than observation of the natural world. Mohler is wrong here. Continuing:

The inference and consensus of the church, through all of these centuries, that the earth and the universe, the cosmos as a whole, is very young, talking about a limitation of only several thousand years by the time you take the book of Genesis and especially its first eleven chapters, and you look at the creation account and you look at the genealogy and you add it all together you’re looking at no more than several thousand years. We’re talking about a disagreement that is not slight. The difference between several thousand years and 13.5 billion years is no small matter and I would argue it comes with huge theological consequences.

Not mentioned here is also that the church had the consensus that the earth was flat, and in the center of the universe, two positions that we now know to be completely false. By removing the age of the earth question from this context, he makes the early church writers out to be more educated than they, in fact, were.Even secular science had little understanding of the physical world until the last three hundred years. That tells us more about the state of science than the state of theology.

The crux of the article is that the current debate in science is being defined by intellectual "elites," both scientific and theological who have lost sight of what is actually in the Bible. He writes:

As we work backwards in terms of evangelical options, the idea that Genesis is merely literary has to be rejected out of hand as in direct contradiction to our understanding of the Bible as the inerrant and infallible word of God. That option, for any credible and faithful evangelical Christian, must be taken off the table.

Here, he is using inerrant sensu stricto, meaning that it must be read word for word to be understood and that if we do not do that, we have ventured into apostasy. This is a very flat, monochromatic view of scripture. It allows for nothing of the beauty and poetry of the language or how it is similar to the narratives around the Near East and how it differed from them. It also, in my mind, critically and fatally fails to account for the considerable differences between the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2. In the first account, the plants and animals are created before humans. In the second, humans are created first, then plants and animals. How are we to account for these differences, if we read the text literally?

Moher believes that if we accept modern science, when we look at the universe we don't see what is really there. We see what we want to (I am reminded of the dwarves in C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle). It never occurs to Dr. Mohler that he might also be seeing what he wants to see in the scriptures.

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