Is the Bible a book of myths and fairy tales, or is it a book of history and truth?  This DVD series provides a thorough overview of major archaeological and historical discoveries that demonstrate the veracity and accuracy of the Bible.  This series will help you to respond to critical arguments against the historicity of the Bible with solid evidence, and gain a better understanding of the geography, culture, and history of events in the Bible.

View the trailer and get more information here.

TIME: 7:30pm – 9:00pm

WHERE: Bethlehem Community Church, 183 Moffat Rd, Bethlehem, Tauranga, New Zealand.

FORMAT: 60 minute DVD lessons followed by discussions.  This is the second set of DVD’s from Focus on the Family’s True U series and is presented by Dr Stephen Meyer (author of Signature in the Cell).

COST: Free

Explore the scrolls here: http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/

In this video, New Testament professor Craig A. Evans discusses the Biblical manuscripts, textual criticism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls (HT Brian LePort):

His book on the Dead Sea Scrolls is available from Amazon and B&H Publishing.

The argument from undesigned concidences is a little known argument for the historicity of the New Testament. Once popular in the nineteenth century, the argument has more recently been brought to light by Professor Tim McGrew of Western Michigan University. Very simply, the argument shows how incidental details that are left out by one gospel writer are often filled in by another writer to answer questions raised by the first. This provides good evidence to conclude that at numerous points the authors of the gospels were accurately and independently reporting actual events rather than merely copying one another or engaging in creative myth-making.

Here is Professor McGrew’s talk on the subject at First Baptist Church of Kenner:

• Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels

And here are more recent interviews on the topic that he has given:

• With Brian Auten at Apologetics315
• With Keith Kendrex at Evidence4Faith
  
• With Frank Turek at CrossExamined.

The CrossExamined blog also has a good post on the two categories of undesigned coincidences relevant to the historicity of the New Testament. For Professor McGrew’s response to Ed Babinski’s critique of his argument, visit this post on Victor Reppert’s blog.

The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution

1. Why did you decide to write the book?

As someone with a physics degree who is also a Christian, I was puzzled about why science and religion were supposed to be in conflict. They certainly weren’t for me. So, I dug deeper and found that throughout history, the reality has been very different.  I also discovered a host of fascinating but forgotten Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages who deserved to be brought back to light. In short, there was a fantastic story that no one knew and which was waiting to be told.

2. You contend that contrary to popular belief, there was great scientific advancement during the Middle Ages because of the Church. How did the Church help spur this scientific discovery and why do most people believe the Church was a hindrance to science?

The Church made math and science a compulsory part of the syllabus at medieval universities for anyone who wanted to study theology. That meant loads of students got grounding in these subjects, and professors could hold down jobs teaching it.

The myth that the Church held back science dates from the “enlightenment” when Voltaire and other French philosophes invented it to attack the Catholics of their own day as impediments to political progress.

3. What are the most important and lasting scientific advancements to come out of the Middle Ages?

Fourteenth-century natural philosophers developed the arguments on relative motion used by Copernicus to explain why we cannot tell the Earth is moving; the mathematical formula that Galileo used to describe how objects fall under gravity; the concept of inertia and human dissection. All these achievements were used by later scientists without acknowledgement.  And medieval inventors gave us eyeglasses, the mechanical clock, the horse harness, the printed book, and reliable handguns.

Read the rest of the interview here.

The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution is available now.

HT: Tom Gilson

In the article I cited in the previous post, David Brink, addresses Deuteronomy 22: 13-21. Brink claims this teaches “that the community can and should stone to death any women whose husband finds she was not a virgin on her wedding night.”

I’ll start with two minor points. First, Brink assumes that this is addressed to “the community,” by which I assume he means contemporary communities. This is false; it is addressed to ancient Israel’s community as any reading of the opening chapters of Deuteronomy clearly show. How The Mosaic Law relates to contemporary Christians is a detailed and vexed topic of biblical hermenutics yet Brink ignores the issues and simply assumes that it addresses us directly.

Second, this text deals with adultery and not pre-marital sex. As Gordon Wenham notes pre-marital sex is addressed a few lines later in Deuteronomy 22: 28-29.[1] Wenham notes that the case Brink cites (Dt 22:13-21) deals with adultery.[2] In ANE law, betrothal was considered a binding marriage; women were betrothed young and often some time before they consummated the marriage. This case deals with betrothed women who after betrothal and prior to consummation has sex with a third party. As I note in footnote 15, this is a minor point. I am sure Brink is not allayed by the fact that she is to be executed for adultery as opposed to pre-marital sex, his problem is clearly execution related; that said, it is important that one not exaggerate what the text says.

Third, as I argued in Part I, when The Torah prescribes that a person be executed, the implict assumption is that this will not be carried out but some lesser financial penalty will be inflicted as a ransom. This seems to be borne out by an examination of this law.

Brink refers to Deuteronomy 22:13-21, in particular “if … the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found … the men of her town shall stone her to death.” What Brink does not focus on is the sentence if the charges prove to be false; if the husband is simply slandering his bride. In this instance the husband suffers three penalties, first he is subjected to some unspecified punishment which would be at the discretion of the court. It is clear that this is not execution because the text assumes that he will continue to be married to the women in the future. Second the husband shall pay “100 shekels of silver” to the father and lose his right to divorce. Wenham explains the rationale for this price:

The husband claims that by giving him a dud wife (for his 50 shekels) his father in law had in effect stolen the sum from him. Two legal principles are therefore applicable those dealing with theft and false witness. The penalty for theft of deposited property is double restitution according to Ex xii7. But according to Deut xix19 and other ancient near eastern laws false witnesses were punished with the punishment the accused would have suffered if substantiated”[3]

This explains the 100 shekels; the problem is that it raises an issue which Wenham is aware of. “[A]ccording to Deut xix19 false witnesses were punished with the punishment the accused would have suffered if substantiated.” If this law meant that substantiation of the husband’s accusation would actually result in the execution of his wife then the failure to substantiate his claim would mean that the husband would be executed, but he is not. Apart from the fine to the father, his other punishment is an unspecified punishment (which is not execution) and loss of his right to divorce. It appears then that the actual execution of the woman was not envisaged. Wenham suggests then a substitute must have been envisaged in this text if it was to be read as coherent and consistent with the other laws in Deuteronomy.

This conclusion seems to be strengthened by several other passages that deal with the same topic. Two chapters later, Deuteronomy 24:1-5, The Torah deals with a case where a man divorces his wife, “who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her.” This same passage is cited by Jesus in the synoptic gospels. David Instone-Brewer has argued, convincingly, that the reference to “something indecent” is interpreted by Christ as referring to adultery.[4] This passage then deals with the same situation as Deuteronomy 24; the text tells us she is divorced and by implication loses her mohar money but is silent on any other punishment. However, the woman is clearly not executed as she marries another man in v 2. This makes sense if the capital sanctions for adultery function as admonitory devices and in practice, a ransom was made as a substitute (possibly alongside a lesser sentence) but it does not make sense if a women who was discovered to have committed adultery by her husband was required to be executed.

A similar picture emerges in a second passage Wenham cites. In the book of proverbs the author warns his son about adultery and refers to the judicial consequences that will ensue if he does not heed this warning.[5] It is clear that a ransom substitute is envisaged, moreover, it suggests that if the husband refuses to accept a ransom payment the adulterer will suffer blows and disgrace, note that execution is not envisaged. In fact, the discussions in Proverbs suggest the consequences will be financial loss and social ostracism. This all makes sense on the hypothesis mentioned in Part I but does not make sense if adultery was in fact punished by death. Wenham notes this point and draws the conclusion that in Deuteronomy 22:13-21 the law envisaged a substitute.

In conclusion, sceptics like David Brink often cite passages like Deuteronomy 22:13-21 in horror to discredit Christianity. However, they erroneously assume superficial literalistic renditions of the passages in question. In this instance, the genre of the passage, in light of the common ANE legal practices and customs suggests that capital sanctions function as a kind of hyperbole and in practice a ransom was paid and the punishment mitigated.

This practice is implicitly assumed in many of the Old Testament laws about homicide. Reading it this way renders the laws in Deuteronomy consistent with each other and with the reference to adultery in the book of Proverbs. Further, it also coheres better with our moral intuitions in the way a literalistic reading does not.

In my final post in this series I will look at Brink’s response to the kind of argument I have advanced in this series and his appeal to dialectical equilibrium.

[1] In “Bethulah: A Girl of Marriageable Age,” Vetus Testamentum 22 (1972) 326-348, Gordon Wenham points out that the same law is also spelled out in Exodus 22:15 and it is treated as a relatively minor offense; the penalty is simply that the man must pay the “mohar” to the bride’s father. A mohar was security money (50 shekels) that the groom paid to the bride’s father. It was held in trust for the woman in case the man later abandoned her or divorced her without just cause. See the discussion in David Instone Brewer Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).
[2] Wenham “Bethulah: A Girl of Marriageable Age.”
[3] Ibid 332.
[4] Brewer Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible.
[5] Proverbs 6.

Cross Posted at MandM

In “The Autonomy of Ethics,” David Brink writes that a literal reading of the Old Testament,

[Y]ields problematic moral claims, such as Deuteronomy’s claims that parents can and should stone to death rebellious children (21:18-21) and that the community can and should stone to death any wife whose husband discovers that she was not a virgin when he married her (22:13-21). We have more reason to accept secular scientific and moral claims than we do to accept a literal reading of these particular religious texts.[1]

In a footnote Brink refers to several other references to capital punishment in the Old Testament for various different crimes.[2]

I respect Brink’s stature as an ethicist, however, as an interpreter of scripture his work has left a lot to be desired. That said, I find the kind of hermeneutics he employs common in sceptical literature, so I will address what he says here.

One principle of interpreting literature is to interpret a text according to its genre. One does not read poetry, for example as science or scientific theorems as songs or math texts as romantic fiction. The book of Deuteronomy, in terms of its structure, literary form and language, parallels the structure and language of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) legal texts. Many of the cases given are similar to the cases and laws in these texts. As such, this raises the issue as to how references to capital punishment function in such texts.

In a study of ANE legal corpus, Raymond Westbrook notes that seemingly harsh penalties are common in such codes. In old Babylonian law, the hand that assaults is severed; a man who kisses another’s wife has his lips cut off; a person who steals bees is to be stung by bees; a person who had thrown his victim into an oven was to be thrown into an oven; a man who raped another’s wife would be sentenced to having his own wife or daughter raped; a negligent builder whose house collapsed and killed another’s son would be sentenced to having his own son killed, and so on.[3] In fact, the Code of Hammurabi states that if a man knocks out the eye of one of the upper classes, his eye must be knocked out.[4]

Not only are these punishments harsh but they both appear inconsistent with the legal practice that occurred in these cultures and also with themselves in some instances. Westbrook notes “[s]ome law codes impose physical punishments and others payments for the same offenses, while some codes have a mixture of the two.”[5] Westbrook notes that the contradiction is only apparent because “in highlighting one or the other alternative, the codes are making a statement as to their view of the gravity of the offence.”[6] The laws “reflect the scribal compilers’ concern for perfect symmetry and delicious irony rather than the pragmatic experience of the law courts.”[7] The method used in legal texts was “to set out principles by the use of often extreme examples.”[8]

Westbrook points to the practice of “ransoming” as providing an explanation of how this worked in application. In ANE legal practice a person who committed a serious crime would be considered to have forfeited their life or limb, this, however, did not mean they were executed or mutilated. Instead they could ransom their life or limb by making a monetary payment and/or agreeing to some lesser penalty, usually decided by the courts. This background was implicitly accepted and understood to apply.

Westbrook is not eccentric in this view. J J Finkelstein makes a similar point reflecting on what appears to be very harsh capital (and sometimes vicarious) sentences in the code of Hammurabi and the absurdity and impossibility of putting them into practice. As Finkelstein notes, one law which states that a physician whose patient dies in surgery or is blinded by surgery is to have his hand cut off. Finkelstein remarks that “it is inconceivable that any sane person in ancient Mesopotamia would have been willing to enter the surgeon’s profession if such a law were literally enforced.”[9] On the other hand, “if a system of ransom were assumed where the life of the builder or his son could be redeemed and the hand of the physician could be redeemed by pecuniary ransom, these laws would not only have an admonitory function (for which the more graphic statement of the penalty–execution or mutilation–is more effective), but would also be practical as law.”[10]

He concludes that Mesopotamian penalty prescriptions,

[W]ere not meant to be complied with literally even when they were first drawn up, [But rather they] serve an admonitory function. If one would be bold enough to restate Hammurabi’s 230 as a direct admonition it might run to this effect: “woe to the contractor who undertakes construction and in his greed cuts corners”.[11]

Interestingly many commentators of The Torah have noted it appears to operate with the same assumption. This is particularly evident with the laws regarding homicide. Ex 21: 29-32 deals with a case where an ox gores another person to death due to negligence on the part of the owner. The penalty stated is that the negligent person shall be put to death. However, immediately preceding this, provision is made for a monetary fine to be paid instead of execution. Joe Sprinkle comments,

[V] 29 applies the principle of [life for life], a man whose negligence has caused the loss of a life forfeits his own life. But v. 30 goes on to show that this operates within a system that permits a payment of money to take the place of the actual execution of the offender.”[12]

Sprinkle goes on to conclude, “In sum, there is good reason to suppose that the death sentence of v. 29 is mostly hyperbole to underscore the seriousness of negligence which threatens the life of another human being.”[13]

A second example cited by Sprinkle occurs in the book of Kings. Here an incident is mentioned where a person has committed a capital crime. The sentence is announced “a life for a life”; however, the immediate context shows what this sentence was. “It will be your life for his life or you must weigh out a talent of silver.” Sprinkle notes that here again “’life for life’ in the sense of capital punishment has an explicit alternative of monetary substitution.”[14]

Perhaps the clearest example is on noted by Walter Kaiser. In Exodus 21:13-14 the law clearly distinguishes between accidental and premeditated homicide. If a man who has struck another and killed that person (an analogous case to a man striking a woman and killing her) seeks sanctuary, he is to be provided it unless he “lay in wait” for his victim. Jackson notes that “lay in wait” referred to premeditated homicide.[15] In Numbers 35 the same law is expounded in more detail; a homicide where a person “lay in wait” is contrasted with a homicide where the assailant “attacked him suddenly without enmity.”[16] This appears to be a reference to an intentional but not premeditated attack such as a ‘crime of passion.’

After laying out clearly and repeatedly that the a person who kills in pre-meditation “shall surely be put to death” the text goes on to state “’Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death… .” Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” Unless there was an assumed practice of “ransoming” the lives of those under a capital sentence, this comment seems superfluous. Sprinkle notes “The availability of ransom seems to have been so prevalent that when biblical law wants to exclude it, as in the case of intentional murder, it must specifically prohibit it”.[17]

In, Towards an Old Testament Ethics, Walter Kaiser draws the same conclusion,

The key text in this discussion is Num 35:31: “Do not accept a ransom [or substitute] for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death.” There were some sixteen crimes that called for the death penalty in the OT…. Only in the case of premeditated murder did the text say that the officials in Israel were forbidden to take a “ransom” or a “substitute”. This has widely been interpreted to imply that in all the other fifteen cases the judges could commute the crimes deserving of capital punishment by designating a “ransom” or “substitute”. In that case the death penalty served to mark the seriousness of the crime.[18]

In Part II I will argue that this understanding of the references to capital punishment in The Torah makes best sense of the laws regarding adultery that Brink cites.

[1] David Brink “The Autonomy of Ethics” The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed Michael Martin (Cambridge :Cambridge University Press, 2007) 159.
[2] Ibid, note 17, 164.
[3] See Raymond Westbrook, “The Character of Ancient Near Eastern Law,” in A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law, Vol. 1, ed. Raymond Westbrook (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003) 74.
[4] Code of Hammurabi, 195-196, also 199.
[5] Westbrook “The Character of Ancient Near Eastern Law,” 71-78.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] J. J. Finkelstein The Ox that Gored (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1981) 34-35.
[10] Joe Sprinkle “The Interpretation of Exodus 21:22-25 (Lex Talonis) and Abortion,” Westminster Theological Journal 55 (1993) 241
[11] Finkelstein The Ox that Gored 35.
[12] Sprinkle “The Interpretation of Exodus” 238.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid, 233-53.
[15] Bernard Jackson. “The Problems of Exodus 21:22-25 (Ius Talionis),” Vetus Testamentum 23 (1973) 288-290.
[16] Num. 35:22.
[17] Jackson “The Problems of Exodus” 239.
[18] Walter Kaiser, “Gods Promise Plan and his Gracious Law,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 35:3 (1992) 293.

Cross Posted at MandM

Wright makes some good points here. The Genesis 1-3 debate is stalked by generalizations and false antitheses. There is always a real danger in distorting and domesticating the Bible via the preoccupations of our own modern situation. As much as possible, we should start with Scripture and the priorities and structures within the text itself, instead of those of our own context. We should always seek to faithfully and accurately embed the text in its own literary, historical, and canonical context.

Understanding the genre is crucial. Just as, today, different literary genres have different means of making rhetorical effects and of taking about reality, so do the varied Biblical genres. And this diversity of literary forms means we must sensitive to the fact that the Bible contains more (though not less) than propositional truth. This isn’t to say that all literary genres convey truth plus something else but that some genres shape their purposes and priorities differently. Wright is correct to point out that if we reduce a passage (say, a narrative passage) to a number of propositions or single notes we miss the way the (narrative) genre can speak through themes, character development, plot, etc.

Furthermore, the ancient literary categories do not neatly overlap with ours and that is why we must be careful when we talk about biblical genres (I think this cuts against the the current definition of “myth” invented by modern anthropologists as much as it does against a scientific reading). Whatever category we do use for the opening chapters, a fair amount of nuance is necessary.

Even if we do understand the purpose of Genesis 1-3 as primarily theological/mythical, we haven’t escaped the question of whether it belongs to a matrix of thought that implies or is undergirded by historical events and characters (the “primal pair” that Wright affirms). Just because the message is theological, this does not mean that it is not also historical (or that it can be disentangled from the historical). Take some examples in the New Testament (some borrowed from D. A. Carson), where, although the writer is making a theological point, in each case the argument is grounded in and inseparable from a historical claim:

- In Galatians 3, Paul’s theological argument is made via appeal to the order of events in redemptive history. He argues that the law is relativised by the fact that both the giving of the promises to Abraham and his justification by faith preceded the giving of the law.

- In Romans 4, Paul makes an argument about the relation between faith and circumcision that again depends on the historical sequence of which came first.

- In Hebrews 3:7-4:13, the author argues that entering God’s rest must mean something more than merely entering the Promised Land because of the fact that Psalm 95 (which is still calling for God’s people to enter into God’s rest) is written after they were already in the land.

- Again in Hebrews, the theological point of chapter 7 is that because Psalm 110 promises a further priesthood and is written after the establishment of the Levitical priesthood, the Levitical priesthood is therefore obsolete.

-Paul’s argument about the reality of the resurrection in 1 Cor 15:12-19.

Wright is correct to say that we must read Genesis for all its worth. And to do this, sooner or later we are going to need to ask what the ancient readers (and other Biblical writers) themselves thought about the correspondence between the Biblical account of creation and what actually happened. It won’t fly to say that the ancient Biblical writers weren’t concerned with history or couldn’t distinguish between fable and reality (observe how much Judges 9 stands out from the rest of that passage). The early chapters of Genesis are certainly not a scientific treatise, but even if we understand that the point of these chapters is explain that all of creation is God’s tabernacle and that creation itself is finite and not divine, are we completely off the hook? We need to ask if the writer is telling us true things about God, and about real people and events that took place in history.

• For most of these, their faith was the driving force behind their discoveries.
• True self-sustaining modern science (not just engineering, logic or mathematics) was born within a Christian society.

Here’s the relevant section (read the whole thing here) :

Daniel Graves, author of Scientists of Faith and Doctors Who Followed Christ, writes: “Many of the sciences derive directly from the work of a Christian or were greatly influenced at their inception by a Christian. … It may seem an outrageous claim that Christians were seminal to much of what dominates modern scientific thinking, but it is true. There is hardly a science or scientific idea which cannot trace its inception as a viable theory to some Christian.”  A careful study of history reveals that technology and modern science was, in fact, pioneered by Christians.  The case is made by Dr. Ian Hutchison and Dr. Loren Eiseley (below) and at the essays found at the subsequent links.

Ian H.Hutchinson, Head of Department of Nuclear Energy.  Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Department of Nuclear Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. ASA Conference, 4 August 2002.  ”Science: Christian and Natural,” http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/asa2002/.

“Going further, though, I believe there is a constructive case to be made for the phrase Christian Science.

First, as represented by the theme of this conference “Christian Pioneers”, we should recognize that modern science is built upon the foundational work of people who more than anything else were Christians. Christians were the pioneers of the revolution of thought that brought about our modern understanding of the world. MIT, my home institution, the high-temple of science and technology in the United States, has a pseudo-Greek temple architecture about its main buildings. The fluted columns are topped not with baccanalian freizes, but with the names of the historical heroes of science (not to mention William Barton Rogers, the founder). A rough assessment was carried out by a few of us some years ago of the fraction of the people listed there who were Christians. The estimate we arrived at was about 60%.

Any list of the giants of physical science would include Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Pascal, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, all of whom, despite denominational and doctrinal differences among them, and opposition that some experienced from church authorities, were deeply committed to Jesus Christ.

Second, I observed over the years in my interactions with Christians in academia, that far from scientists being weakly represented in the ranks of the faithful, as one would expect if science and faith are incompatible, they are strongly overrepresented. The sociological evidence has been studied systematically for example by Robert Wuthnow [Robert Wuthnow, The Struggle for America's Soul, Eerdmanns, Grand Rapids, (1989), p146.], who established that while academics undoubtedly tend to be believers in lower proportion than the US population as a whole, among academics, scientists were proportionally more likely to be Christians that those in the non-science disciplines. The common misconception that scientists were or are inevitably sundered from the Christian faith by their science is simply false.

Third, the question arises, why did modern science grow up almost entirely in the West, where Christian thinking held sway? There were civilizations of comparable stability, prosperity, and in many cases technology, in China, Japan, and India. Why did they not develop science? It is acknowledged that arabic countries around the end of the first millenium were more advanced in mathematics, and their libraries kept safe eventually for Christendom much of the Greek wisdom of the ancients. Why did not their learning blossom into the science we now know? More particularly, if Andrew White’s portrait of history, that the church dogmatically opposed all the “dangerous innovations” of science, and thereby stunted scientific development for hundreds of years, why didn’t science rapidly evolve in these other cultures?

A case that has been made cogently by Stanley Jaki [Stanley L. Jaki, The road of science and the ways to God, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, (1978).], amongst others, is that far from being an atmosphere stifling to science, the Christian world view of the West was the fertile cultural and philosophical soil in which science grew and flourished. He argues that it was precisely the theology of Christianity which created that fertile intellectual environment. The teaching that the world is the free but contingent creation of a rational Creator, worthy of study on its own merits because it is “good”, and the belief that because our rationality is in the image of the creator, we are capable of understanding the creation: these are theological encouragements to the work of empirical science. Intermingled with the desire to benefit humankind for Christian charity’s sake, and enabled by the printing press to record and communicate results for posterity, the work of science became a force that gathered momentum despite any of the strictures of a threatened religious hierarchy.

So I suggest that there is a deeper reason why scientists are puzzled about how one might pursue a Christian Science distinguished from what has been the approach developed over the past half millenium. It is that modern science is already in a very serious sense Christian. It germinated in and was nurtured by the Christian philosophy of creation, it was developed and established through the work of largely Christian pioneers, and it continues to draw Christians to its endeavours today.”

Dr. Loren Eiseley (1907-1977), a Professor of anthropology, a science history writer and evolutionist, concluded that the birth of modern science was mainly due to the creationist convictions of its founders.

“It is the CHRISTIAN world which finally gave birth in a clear articulated fashion to the experimental method of science itself … It began its discoveries and made use of its method in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a Creator who did not act upon whim nor inference with the forces He had set in operation. The experimental method succeeded beyond man’s wildest dreams but the faith that brought it into being owes something to the Christian conception of the nature of God. It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption.” [Loren Eiseley, Darwin's Centenary: Evolution and the Men who Discovered it, Doubleday: New York, 1961 p:62]

Kenneth Scott Latourette, Sterling Professor at Yale University, wrote,

“Across the centuries Christianity has been the means of reducing more languages to writing than have all other factors combined. It has created more schools, more theories of education, and more systems than has any other one force. More than any other power in history it has impelled men to fight suffering, whether that suffering has come from disease, war or natural disasters. It has built thousands of hospitals, inspired the emergence of the nursing and medical professions, and furthered movement for public health and the relief and prevention of famine. Although explorations and conquests which were in part its outgrowth led to the enslavement of Africans for the plantations of the Americas, men and women whose consciences were awakened by Christianity and whose wills it nerved brought about the abolition of slavery (in England and America). Men and women similarly moved and sustained wrote into the laws of Spain and Portugal provisions to alleviate the ruthless exploitation of the Indians of the New World.

… By its name and symbol, the most extensive organization ever created for the relief of the suffering caused by war, the Red Cross, bears witness to its Christian origin. The list might go on indefinitely. It includes many another humanitarian projects and movements, ideals in government, the reform of prisons and the emergence of criminology, great art and architecture, and outstanding literature.”

[A History of Christianity, Vol. II, originally published by HarperCollins Publishers 1953, revised 1975, pp.1470,1471].

Other links (provided by Miller) for further reading:

Eric V. Snow. Christianity, A Cause of Modern Science? Explains the historical research of Duhem, Jaki, and Merton. http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-298.htm or http://www.rae.org/jaki.html

David F. Coppedge.   The World’s Greatest Creation Scientists from Y1K to Y2K, http://creationsafaris.com/wgcs.htm

Christianity and the Birth of Science: Why modern science arose in Christian Europe and not in other cultures.  Dr. Michael Bumbulis proposes four evidences and anticipates objections. http://www.ldolphin.org/bumbulis/

Luther and Science: An essay on relation of Protestant thought to the advancement of science, and an important refutation of the claim that Luther and his followers ridiculed and repressed Copernicanism: http://www.leaderu.com/science/kobe.html

T. V. Varughese, Ph.D. Christianity and Technological Advance: The Astonishing Connection, http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-245.htm

Ben Clausen on the origin of science, and examples of believers, with bibliography: Christianity Aiding the Development of Science, http://www.grisda.org/bclausen/papers/aid.htm

Colin Russell, Professor of History of Science and Technology, The Open University, England; Chairman – Vice President, Christians in Science.  “Without a Memory,” http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1993/PSCF12-93Russell.html. From Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 45 (March 1993): 219-221.

Christianity is for Weak, Stupid People? – The Role of Reason for Christians http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/reason.html

I recommend either getting a hold of the issue or reading it online here. If you’ve been following my recent “Conflict for the conflict thesis” posts, Matt’s article dove-tails nicely with that series and my central claim: Christianity encourages and does not oppose science or its success. Even apart from that, go read it – Matt’s writing is never dull, and his well-reasoned arguments are easy to comprehend.

First, evolution was less innovation and more popularization, having been believed by his father before him and his grandfather Erasmus Darwin. During Erasmus’ time there was a resurgence of interest in the philosophy of the ancient Epicurean philosopher Lucrecius, who propounded evolutionary ideas. Evolutionary thinking was already a part of the ethos of the age we call Modernism and Charles Darwin was a man who set out on the Beagle to find proof of evolution, rather than someone who reluctantly came to accept the idea because of the weight of the evidence.

Second, Darwin’s brief tenure studying theology was less from conviction or faith in God, and more to maintain a social acceptability by conforming to what was then considered to be stabilizing cultural norm – the church. His departure from that institution was less from lack of belief, and more to follow his true interest – the study of nature.

Third, Darwin’s thesis was not the bombshell it has been made out to be.[2] Many Christian’s of the day, including Charles Lyell (1797–1875)[3] easily accepted evolutionary ideas and yet remained critical of the Darwinian posturing toward God no longer being necessary to explain the origin and diversity of life. Darwin’s associate and co-discoverer of evolutionary theory Alfred Russell Wallace (1823–1913) became convinced that natural selection alone – without God – would not suffice. The beauty and intricateness of such a process, he thought, was too grand and astounding, and still could not explain human morality, rationality and even physical nature.[4]

Fourth, the idea that there was a thoughtless rejection of evolutionary theory on behalf of the church when Origin of Species (1859) and the Decent of Man (1871) were published is mainly rhetoric. Christian thinkers, both scientists and theologians, were for the most part civil and maintained friendly dialogue. Asa Gray (1810-1888), the American botanist at Harvard and Evangelical was one of these: a friend and long-time correspondent of Darwin who saw design and order in the natural world of evolution progress. Moore writes,

“There was not a polarization of “science” and “religion” as the idea of opposed armies implies but a large number of learned men, some scientists, some theologians, some indistinguishable, and almost all of them very religious, who experienced various differences among themselves. There was not organization apparent on either “side” as the idea of rank and command implies but deep divisions among men of science, the majority of whom were at first hostile to Darwin’s theory, and a corresponding and derivative division among Christians who were scientifically untrained, with a large proportion of leading theologians quite prepared to come to terms peacefully with Darwin. Nor, finally, was there the kind of antagonism pictured in the discharge of weaponry but rather a much more subdued overall reaction to the Origin of Species than is generally supposed and a genuine amiability in the relations of those who are customarily believed to have been at battle.”[5]

In order to understand the avid rejection of evolutionary theory by some Christians one needs to understand that another science appeared in the nineteenth century. Higher criticism leveled its gaze on the orthodox view of scripture and with the philosophical assumptions of the Enlightenment and Modernism challenged much of Christian belief. There was no official response given by the church on Higher criticism, Evolutionary theory or Darwinism, however individuals within the church did deem to respond to these intellectual challenges. Responses were indeed inevitable if merely by virtue that these ideas became engrained in the culture. These responses can be categorized into four distinct groups: the Liberal response, the Neo-Orthodox response, the Evangelical response and the Fundamentalist response.

The Liberal response to Higher criticism was acceptance. Liberals rejected the authority of the Bible and traditional Christian orthodoxy and therefore did not consider conflict with science possible[6] – science and religion were non-overlapping magisteria. The Neo-orthodox response was dialectical, and so to a lesser extent did the same as the Liberals and accepted the insights.

The Evangelical response was that of accommodation. This was in the tradition of Calvin and in-line with Augustine who advocated perceived conflicts could be reconciled with better interpretation of either the Bible or of nature. John Calvin (1509–1564) the French theologian gave to science two gifts. First, he encouraged the study of nature. Nature demonstrated the wisdom of God and provided proofs of his glory.[7] Second, he removed the need to interpret the bible literally. By offering people a hermeneutic of “accommodation” he made the emergence of the natural sciences possible[8] and firmly grounded a tradition within evangelicalism allowing science to be integrated with the scripture.[9]

Evangelicals therefore attempted harmonization with the insights of Higher criticism, which would eventually yield new insights in theology, and breakthroughs in historical Jesus research. For evolutionary biology harmonization meant a variety of differing positions like Theistic Evolution[10] and Progressive Creationism.[11]

It was the reaction of Fundamentalism that was to have the most profound influence on the way the relationship between science and Christianity were perceived. Higher criticism and Darwin’s popularization of evolutionary theory elicited a negative reaction by some who felt that society was becoming more and more depraved in their thinking. Fundamentalism, distinguished by cultural isolationism and a dogmatic biblical literalism, decided to judge science by the Bible. Evolution is therefore a fraud. This response represents a “circling of the wagons” and as evolutionary theory gained prominence it created a siege mentality. This is why many describe Fundamentalism as obscurantist, insular and militaristic.

Essentially Fundamentalism is Evangelicalism on the defensive, though there is a range of responses to both sciences encapsulated by the term.[12] All refuse the Grand Evolution story for its atheistic implications, but there are a great variety of opinions to the extent which evolution has played a role in the development of the diversity of life. Some criticize evolution on the basis of flaws in theory, others dogmatically refuse in principle and offer no more explanation. Some in the twentieth century sought to re-interpret the evidence without the Rationalist and Materialistic presuppositions and developed Creation Science, which for the most part that militantly rejects evolution in favor of a young earth and a literal 24-hr/six-day creation period.

It is Fundamentalism that fueled the Creation/Evolution controversy in the twentieth century, and this is nowhere more typified by the Scopes Trial (referred to now as “The Monkey Trial”) in 1926. John Scopes was put on trial for teaching evolution, and backed by the ACLU,[13] lost when the Tennessee law was upheld, but the fall-out from media sensationalism at the time lent credit to the Conflict Thesis. The influence of that media storm made it the subject of a play Inherit the Wind (1955) later adapted to a movie in 1960. The idea that science and religion are at war is still very much a part of the general public’s consciousness, even though it is not “religion” as such, but one specific branch of Christian belief that insists on literal interpretations.[14]

Today the relationship between science and Christianity is very healthy. It is believed the renaissance of Christian philosophy over the last fifty years has been so successful the effect has been the resurrection of Natural Theology, including powerful refurbishment of the teleological arguments.[15] The increasingly powerful Intelligent Design movement can be viewed as an effect of this renaissance in Christian thinking. The so-called “New Atheism” is an aberration to the general trend (perhaps also a reaction to it) and represents a movement out of touch with the higher echelons in academia that rejects the Conflict Thesis.[16] There are many other models that are used to describe the relationship between science and religion, but as Brooke says “general theses are difficult to maintain.”[17]

Alvin Plantinga views Christian belief as fundamentally congruent with science and only peripherally hostile.[18] Gary Ferngren summarizes,

“While some historians had always regarded the Draper-White thesis as oversimplifying and distorting a complex relationship, in the late twentieth century it underwent a more systematic reevaluation. The result is the growing recognition among historians of science that the relationship of religion and science has been much more positive than is sometimes thought. Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind as examples of conflict, they were the exceptions rather than the rule”[19]

Concluding then, Christianity has been an overwhelming boon to the scientific endeavor.[20] Kenneth Samples writes:

“Conflicts between scientific theories and the Christian faith have arisen through the centuries, to be sure. However, the level of conflict has often been exaggerated, and Christianity’s positive influence on scientific progress is seldom acknowledged.”[21]

Christianity provides a philosophical foundation for the success of science and today enjoys a fruitful conversation that has endured since the seventeenth century. Although many people presuppose and implicitly if not explicitly accept the Conflict Thesis, this is largely dead in academia. A particular type of Christian belief, namely Fundamentalism, remains reactionary towards a particular type of science, namely evolution. The broad mainstream accepts science as useful to theology, particularly in supporting the project of Natural Theology. When difficulties arise harmonization with a hermeneutic of “accommodation” can be attempted. The relationship is best described as a flourishing dialogue rather than with militaristic terms.

Footnotes

[1] Benjamin Wiker. The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin (2009)

[2] Dr. Matthew Flannegan argues evolutionary theory, if correct, only undermines a specific teleological argument for God’s existence and the rest of Christian theism is still on solid ground.

[3] The eminent scientist and founder of modern geology

[4] Talk with Greg Koukl and Dr. Benjamin Wiker, Stand to Reason.

[5] Quote found at God and Nature: p7-8, quote from Moore, Post-Darwinian Controversies

[6] David C. Lindberg, Ronald L. Numbers, God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science, University of California Press (April 29, 1986) p. 14.

[7] In order than no one might be excluded from the means of obtaining happiness, God has been pleased, not only to place in our minds the seeds of religion of which we have already spoken, but to make known his perfection in the whole structure of the universe, and daily place them in our view, in such a manner that we cannot open our eyes without being compelled to observe him. . . To prove his remarkable wisdom, both the heavens and the earth present us with countless proofs – not just those more advances proofs which astronomy, medicine and all the other natural sciences are designed to illustrate, but proofs which force themselves on the attention of the most illiterate peasant, who cannot open his eyes without seeing them. (Institutes I.v.1-2)

[8] Alister E. McGrath. Science and Religion, (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1999) p. 11

[9] “Prior to the nineteenth century there was a widespread agreement in the West, particularly in Protestant Christian circles, that resolution to these questions could be achieved by combining insights from both science and Scripture in a unified field of knowledge. If such an integrated view on the level of method and reference was established, it would become the focal point on which the understanding of life depended. Consequently, science and the Christian faith were presumed to be on the same die, mutually compatible, and dealing with the discovery of truth through a uniform epistemology.”

Diepstra, George R. and Gregory J. Laughery. “Interpreting Science and Scripture: Genesis 1-3” European Journal of Theology, 18:1, p. 6.

[10] There is a wide range of opinion encapsulated in this broad category, but generally means God created the first life and got the evolutionary ball rolling, but then left the process alone.

[11] Again, this is a broad category, but generally means God was involved and intervened in the process of creation.

[12] The term is also employed to describe a quagmire of other things, such as theological positions and hermeneutical methods, social agendas and political associations, etc., which make the title an honorific, a slur, and without context too vague for proper use.

[13] American Civil Liberties Union

[14] Alister E. McGrath. The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998) p. 22.

[15] The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, pp. 69-85. Ed. M. Martin. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2007  also Quentin Smith, “The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism” Philo 4/2(2001): 3-4.

[16] “God Is Not Dead Yet.” Christianity Today. July, 2008, pp. 22-27.

[17] John Hedley Brooke. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) p. 5

[18] He also convincingly argues that it is naturalism that is fundamentally hostile and only peripherally congruent. (Science and Religion: DVD, Naturalism ad absurdum).

[19] Gary Ferngren (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. p. ix

[20] Kenneth Samples, “The Historic Alliance Between Christianity and Science” (http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/christianscience.shtml; Retrieved 27 Jan, 2009), 1998.

[21] Ibid., See also Stuart McEwing, “The Historic Alliance Between Christianity and Science” (http://talk.thinkingmatters.org.nz/2009/the-historic-alliance-between-christianity-and-science/; Retrieved 27 Nov, 2009)