Is the universe fine-tuned, designed as it were, for our existence?

One of the key doctrines of the Christian faith is also the opening line of the Apostles Creed. “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” Or the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.”  God is the creator of everything that exists. Even time – defined by the material universe – is part of creation.

Does the universe contain evidence of design, evidence of the Creator? Greg Cootsona (Mere Science and Christian Faith) uses fine-tuning and the big bang to explore the relationship between science and Christian faith. Most importantly: should we expect science to prove the existence of God?

The Big Bang. The consensus view until rather recently supported an eternal static universe defined by regular cycles of time. Modern cosmology, i.e. big bang theory, points to a beginning before which the universe as we know it did not exist. Stephen Hawking, well known and accomplished physicist and cosmologist at the University of Cambridge, who died yesterday at the age of 76, put it like this (source):

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there’s no way one could measure what happened at them. … the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.

Stephen Hawking made substantial contributions to our understanding of the universe. His book A Brief History of Time is one I thoroughly enjoyed when it first came out and still recommend. The Big Bang is consistent with the Christian doctrine of creation – time and space have a beginning. The beginning was long ago – 13.8 billion years – but it was a real beginning. Greg warns, however, that we shouldn’t make too much of this agreement. First, while it is clear that the universe is ancient and changing with time, it is possible that some future revision in our understanding of cosmology will point to a universe without a beginning. We could exist in one cycle of a periodic process. Second, a beginning is not in and of itself proof for a creator. If there is no God or creator then the beginning is  simply a consequence of the laws of physics intrinsic to the universe, as Stephen Hawking believed.  The big bang may bolster the faith of the faithful, but it is not likely to convince a skeptic of the truth of the Christian story.

What about fine-tuning? Greg supplies a definition of cosmic fine-tuning from Wikipedia (source):

The fine-tuned Universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can occur only when certain universal dimensionless physical constants lie within a very narrow range of values, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, the Universe would be unlikely to be conducive to the establishment and development of matter, astronomical structures, elemental diversity, or life as it is understood.

The fine-tuning of the universe is often taken as another argument for the existence of a creator (i.e. God).  This, too, is a flawed argument. The fine-tuning of the universe is consistent with the Christian faith. We certainly expect that God, maker of heaven and earth, would have designed his creation as one hospitable for his purposes and thus for humankind. Greg puts it like this:

But is it a proof for God? Here’s where it’s easy to overstate the case. Some present the multiverse theory as a rejoinder-in other words, there have been innumerable attempts at other universes that simply failed. But since most of my colleagues in science tell me this theory is metaphysical speculation because it is in principle inaccessible to our scientific verification, I turn to philosophy for the strongest argument against fine-tuning as a p roof for God’s creation: it’s a tautology. Simply put, we are here in this particular universe. Whether its existence is perfectly calibrated or not, it’s the only universe we’ve got. It’s the only universe we know. In a sense, that makes the probability of its existence one hundred percent. …

This is not a deductive proof for God that leaves no room for disagreement. Instead it’s a suppositional argument that offers confirmation for the judgment that this universe has design and that design is confirmed, to some degree, by the incredible particularity of its parameters. If we suppose there to be a God who desired the universe, we should expect that this universe would have evidences of the design. The fine-tuning of various physical constants is therefore consistent with God’s design. Therefore it is reasonable to assert that God exists. (p. 79)

The bottom line is that we should be careful and open-handed in our integration of science and Christian faith. Although we affirm that God as creator is revealed in his creation, we need to be cautious in our conclusions. Greg provides four guidelines that I paraphrase and interpret from my perspective here.

• Scripture and nature give complementary perspectives on the nature of God. Greg notes that they are “not identical.” We shouldn’t be looking at nature to reveal much of the personal, relational nature of God or to Scripture to inform our scientific study of nature.
• Science is a changing discipline. Don’t make too much of an apparent agreement (e.g. the big bang) but don’t ignore the agreements and consistencies either.
• Keep up with developments so you don’t base your arguments on disputed ideas or conclusions that have been re-evaluated and revised in light of new evidence.
• Don’t jump on every new band wagon in science. Let the field mature before worrying much about it.

What do you see as the relationship between science and Christian faith?

What does it mean to integrate these two perspectives?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

In her newest collection of lectures, What Are We Doing Here?, Marilynne Robinson takes on the issue of the humanities. Do we need them? Why do we need them?

The problem is the collapse of so much of higher education under the weight of economics combined with big business and little more than professional or job preparation. Is college/university about getting ready to get a job or is it about preparing a human to be more fully human? Robinson:

Our great universkies, with their vast resources, their exhaustive libraries, look like a humanist’s dream. Certainly, with the collecting and archiving that has taken place in them over centuries, they could tell us much that we need to know. But there is pressure on them now to change fundamentally, to equip our young to be what the Fabians used to call “brain workers.” They are to be skilled labor in the new economy, intellectually nimble enough to meet its needs, which we know will change constantly and unpredictably. I may simply have described the robots that will be better suited to this kind of existence, and with whom our optimized workers will no doubt be forced to compete, poor complex and distractible creatures that they will be still.

Those who know Robinson know, too, that she sharpens her blade when it comes to ideological determinisms, which seem to rule the roost in the academy:

Yet the disciplines that treat of the human psyche are determinist as ever. These days we are believed by many to be locked into perpetual cost-benefit analysis, unconsciously guided by a calculus of self-interest somehow negotiated at the level of the genome. The, shall we say, biomechanics of all this are never described, of course. It has the apparent advantage, for its exponents, of marginalizing the mind, in fact anything that has ever been called the psyche, not to mention the soul. So did phrenology, eugenics, Marxianism, Freudianism, behaviorism. We have no capacity for meaningful choice, so they all tell us.

… Having 
no more, perhaps less, empirical basis than belief in elves and fairies, a fairly recent appearance of this impulse under the term ‘the selfish gene” has enjoyed considerable authority. Its precursors have been embarrassed by scientific advances or have simply gone out of style, in either case demonstrating their lack of empirical basis. The selfish gene, a theory that does not even nod to the complexity and fluidity of the genome, will no doubt hang around until some new costume is found to dress up the old idea.

Or, as she said at Stanford:

Public universities are stigmatized as elitist because they continue in the work of democratizing privilege, of opening the best thought and the highest art to anyone who wishes to have access to them. They are attacked as elitist because their tuition goes up as the supports they receive from government go down. The Citizen had a country, a community, children and grandchildren, even—a word we no longer hear—posterity. The Taxpayer has a 401(k). It is no mystery that one could be glad to endow monumental libraries, excellent laboratories, concert halls, arboretums, baseball fields, and the other simply can’t see the profit in it for himself.

Those questions are asked and teased into some answers by Robinson, and at the heart of her proposal is the mind, the self, the soul, not in turning a human into an economic unit.  She’s got things to say here about humanities, and so also does Justin Stower [HT: JS].

Justin Stower, The Chronicle for Higher Education:

The result of this is deep conceptual confusion about what the humanities are and the reason for studying them in the first place. I do not intend to address the former question here — most of us know the humanities when we see them.

Instead I wish to address the other question: the reason for studying them in the first place. This is of paramount importance. After all, university officials, deans, provosts, and presidents all are far more likely to know how to construct a Harvard Business School case study than to parse a Greek verb, more familiar with flowcharts than syllogisms, more conversant in management-speak than the riches of the English language. Hence the oft-repeated call to “make the case for the humanities.”

Such an endeavor is fraught with ambiguities. Vulgar conservative critiques of the humanities are usually given the greatest exposure, and yet it is often political (and religious) conservatives who have labored the most mightily to foster traditional humanistic disciplines. Left defenders of the humanities have defended their value in the face of an increasingly corporate and crudely economic world, and yet they have also worked to gut some of the core areas of humanistic inquiry — “Western civ and all that” — as indelibly tainted by patriarchy, racism, and colonialism.

The humanities have both left and right defenders and left and right critics. The left defenders of the humanities are notoriously bad at coming up with a coherent, effective defense, but they have been far more consistent in defending the “useless” disciplines against politically and economically charged attacks. The right defenders of the humanities have sometimes put forward a strong and cogent defense of their value, but they have had little sway when it comes to confronting actual attacks on the humanities by conservative politicians. The sad truth is that instead of forging a transideological apology for humanistic pursuits, this ambiguity has led to the disciplines’ being squeezed on both sides.

Indeed, both sides enable the humanities’ adversaries. Conservatives who seek to use the coercive and financial power of the state to correct what they see as ideological abuses within the professoriate are complicit in the destruction of the old-fashioned and timeless scholarship they supposedly are defending. It is self-defeating to make common cause with corporate interests just to punish the political sins of liberal professors. Progressives who want to turn the humanities into a laboratory for social change, a catalyst for cultural revolution, a training camp for activists, are guilty of the same instrumentalization. When they impose de facto ideological litmus tests for scholars working in every field, they betray their conviction that the humanities exist only to serve contemporary political and social ends.

Caught in the middle are the humanities scholars who simply want to do good work in their fields; to read things and think about what they mean; to tease out conclusions about the past and present through a careful analysis of evidence; to delve deeply into language, art, artifact, culture, and nature. This is what the university was established to do. …

The cure proposed for the crisis of the humanities is worse than the disease. It seeks to save the humanities by destroying the conditions under which they thrive. If scholars in the humanities stopped researching arcane topics, stopped publishing them in obscure journals that nobody reads, and spent all their time teaching, the university itself would cease to exist. We would have just high schools — perhaps good high schools, but high schools nonetheless.

To talk about the crisis of the humanities is to consider the survival of the university itself.  ….

The reality is that the humanities have always been about courtoisie, a constellation of interests, tastes, and prejudices that marks one as a member of a particular class. That class does not have to be imagined solely in economic terms. Indeed, the humanities have sometimes done a good job of producing a class with some socioeconomic diversity. But it is a class nonetheless. Roman boys (of a certain social background) labored under the rod of the grammaticus because their parents wanted to initiate them into the community of Virgil readers — a community that spanned much of the vast Roman world, and which gave the bureaucratic class a certain cohesion it otherwise lacked. In the Middle Ages, reading Virgil, commenting on Aristotle, participating in quaestiones disputatae, writing chansons de geste and romances — these set apart scholars — bachelors, masters, and doctors alike — as an international community.

So, too, the humanists of the 15th and 16th century — the ones who helped ease us away from the arts to the studia humanitatis. They formed a certain class marked by a certain set of tastes and interests, entangled with church and state, but notionally with some sense of identity as being part of something else as well — as, too, did the Republic of Letters of the 17th and 18th centuries.

This remains true today. Deep down, what most humanists value about the humanities is that they offer participation in a community in which they can share similar tastes in reading, art, food, travel, music, media, and yes, politics. We might talk about academic diversity, but the academy is a tribe, and one with relatively predictable tastes. It does not take a particularly sharp observer to guess whether a given humanist might be fond of some new book reviewed favorably in the LRB or some new music discussed enthusiastically on NPR. The guess might not always be right, but if even odds are offered, our observer could get away with a tidy sum. If the bet were on political affiliation, the payoff would be almost guaranteed. …

The humanities and the university do need defenders, and the way to defend the humanities is to practice them. Vast expanses of humanistic inquiry are still in need of scholars and scholarship. Whole fields remain untilled. We do not need to spend our time justifying our existence. All we need to do is put our hand to the plow. Scholarship has built institutions before and will do so again. Universities have declined and come to flourish once more. The humanities, which predate the university and may well survive it, will endure — even if there is no case to defend them.

Justin Stover is a quondam fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford, and a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. This article originally appeared in American Affairs.

After an introduction and a brief discussion of emerging adulthood, Greg Cootsona, Mere Science and Christian Faith, digs into hermeneutics – the principles of interpretation that shape the way we read scripture, including the creation passages. It is unfortunate that some Christians and atheists find common ground on the issue of interpretation. Either a favored interpretation is true, or scripture is false and Christianity based on a misguided myth. Christianity is said to stand or fall with such ideas as a young earth, Job and Jonah as history, and a global flood.

Closer to the truth: the Scriptures are a collection of sophisticated and deep writings assembled for a purpose, to lead us to God and to tell his story. Greg quotes the statement put forth by Fuller Seminary “All the books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, are the written word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” (p. 62). He also points out that the early church creeds say nothing about Scripture, although the church fathers clearly read and valued Scripture as authoritative, shaping both faith and practice. Consistent with the echoes of Mere Christianity in Greg’s book, he also notes that C.S. Lewis “made it clear that he disagreed with inerrancy, which he called “Fundamentalist,” and didn’t concern himself with whether the Bible contained errors or not. He simply believed it was authoritative, read it daily, and sought to live out its message.”  (p. 62)

How should we approach Scripture? Greg outlines five key principles to direct interpretation. (pp. 71-73)

(1) “Whatever word we use to describe our commitment to the truth and power of Scripture-whether inerrant, infallible, or anything else-we’re committed to the ultimate authority (or primacy) of Scripture and not to our interpretation of it.“

(2) “Along with Old Testament scholar John Walton, we need to affirm that although the Bible can speak to us, it wasn’t written for us. We are overhearing a conversation that originally took place with another audience. That means we need to take time to learn about the ancient context in which God spoke in Scripture and then carefully seek to apply that to the twenty-first century. … The Bible is written in the thought forms of its day.“

(3) “We can’t simply hope to apply a passage directly to our context without taking in the original setting. So learning the historical, social, and scientific context of the passage can keep us from a myriad of interpretive sins. In other words, we have to work hard to find what’s in the passage and not what we’d like to find. We need to avoid making Scripture a mirror of our own faces and convictions.“

(4) “The literal interpretation is not the only one.” Some passages were not intended to be interpreted literally. The Scriptures use many forms and genres including history, parable, and story, poetry and prose, liturgical and provocative rhetoric. Even historical passages, while intending to relate historical events, use forms and structures common in the ancient world rather than the modern ‘scientific’ approach. Other passages may refer to ideas common in the ancient Near East, but out of favor today (e.g. the vault above the earth). In taking Scripture as authoritative we should commit to searching out the form and context of the text.

(5) “Go for the leaner, more humble interpretation. And when we don’t know, it’s okay to say that too.” (This he learned from Earl Palmer at First Presbyterian Church Berkeley.)

What would you add to Greg’s list? What might you change?

What does it mean to respect the authority of Scripture?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

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The next chapter in Old Earth or Evolutionary Creation: Discussing Origins with Reasons to Believe and BioLogos looks at the scientific method with focus on methodological naturalism and natural theology.  J. B. (Jim) Stump (BioLogos) and Jeff Zweerink (RTB) again take the lead for their two organizations. James Dew moderates the discussion.

The discussion starts with methodological naturalism in the practice of science.

It will probably surprise some that Jim sees more issues with methodological naturalism than Jeff, but this is a result of their distinct approaches to the questions of origins. It isn’t that Jim dismisses methodological naturalism, but rather that as a philosopher he takes the long view. There has never been one consistent set of ground rules for the practice of science over the centuries. Methodological naturalism is “a contingent value of most practicing scientists today.” (p. 109)  Methodological naturalism, i.e. the restriction of scientific investigation to natural explanations, is an extremely useful approach to science. “Science has proved remarkably successful at figuring out the causes of phenomena that once were explained only by supernatural agents- from thunder and solar eclipses to disease and epilepsy. Of course that doesn’t mean that science will be able to figure out everything in the future. But it should give us pause before thinking we’ve found some phenomenon for which there will never be any natural. explanation.” (p. 109)   However, methodological naturalism also shows us as Christians the limits of science – it cannot not probe and explain (establish causes for) that which is above or outside of nature – supernatural.

Jeff actually takes a very similar view on this question: “For practical purposes, scientists must operate largely from a standpoint of methodological naturalism in the sense that explanations for the vast majority of phenomena will flow from God’s ordinary providence described by the laws of physics. However, that does not completely exclude theological considerations.” (p. 113) However, RTB views many creation events including human origins as events that transcend nature. They find that a “soft methodological naturalism provides the most efficacious approach to understanding the world.” (p. 115)

Jeff focuses more on the question of natural theology in his opening essay. Jim adds some reflection in his response.

Jeff  finds the traditional approach to natural theology – the idea that nature reveals the existence and attributes of God apart from Scripture – ill advised.  God’s authoritative self revelation is found in Scripture. Rather than starting with nature, we should always be starting with Scripture.  A foundational premise at RTB is that Scripture, properly interpreted,  makes statements that science can address and that these points of agreement are a powerful evangelistic tool demonstrating the authority and inspiration of Scripture.  The arrow points from Scripture to nature not from nature to God.  A limited for of natural theology, looking for design in nature, has some value, but it should be noted that Scripture provides first evidence for design as God shaped creation out of chaos.

In his response Jeff puts the RTB approach clearly:

Today, many non-Christians no longer accept the validity of the Bible, so tools that aid in buttressing its authority with nonbelievers are important. One popular narrative in our culture is that scientific advances continually show the naivete and unsophisticated knowledge of the biblical authors. However, an articulate message that the biblical description actually accords with the best scientific knowledge and that theologically derived ideas encourage rather than impede scientific progress provides a useful means to counter that narrative and engage a skeptical culture.

RTB scholars have interacted with nonbelieving audiences repeatedly over the last three decades by showing how the basic features of creation described in the Bible align with scientific understanding. Those interactions demonstrate the utility of a concordist perspective in challenging nonbelievers to consider the claims of the Bible regarding the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. (p. 119)

Jim agrees with Jeff that the traditional approach to natural theology is problematic. He also acknowledges that RTB has been successful with some people, but also notes that their concordist approach seeing scientific conclusions in Scripture isn’t universally persuasive even among the target audience of scientifically literate nonbelievers. He suggests that this is because the data are not clear and that there is always an element of interpretation as we consider Scripture and also the metaphysical implications of observations in nature.

 So we don’t observe a neutral, natural order. We interpret it, and our interpretations are influenced by the other things we believe. That doesn’t mean that in some postmodern sense every interpretation is just as good as the others. Seeing nature as God’s creation may be an interpretation, but if Christians are right, it is the correct interpretation of what nature is.

Christians who consider the natural order will see it as imbued with purpose, and the more scientists reveal the ordered and lawful behavior of the natural world, the more theologians will revel in God’s provision for creation. Some discoveries may be surprising from certain perspectives. For instance, there are finely tuned physical constants that allow life, and there are evolutionary convergences that seem to render it inevitable that life forms like us develop. These are very hard to square with a perspective that sees nature as purposeless and random. But for Christians, these are not at all inconsistent with what we would expect. (p. 118)

Rather than natural theology a better Christian approach is to consider a theology of nature – theology informs interpretation. This has value for both Christians and skeptics because “we give credence to the Christian way of seeing the world when we show that our beliefs are consistent with what we find there.” (p. 118)

Of course mere consistency is less persuasive to many than the concordism that RTB prefers. It simply doesn’t have apologetic pizazz.

Are there issues with methodological naturalism? If so, what should be changed?

Is there a way that nature can be used to demonstrate the existence of God?

Would you prefer the consistency argument put forth by Jim Stump, the concordist argument of Jeff Zweerink and RTB, or something else?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

I recently received, courtesy of the publisher, a copy of a new book due for release in a week: Mere Science and Christian Faith by Greg Cootsona. Greg has BA from Berkely (overlapping with my years on campus as a Ph.D. student), an MDiv from Princeton, a Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union, and decades of experience working with emerging adults (defined as 18 to 30 year-old) at a number of different churches.  Currently Greg leads STEAM, (i.e. Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries) and teaches in Religious Studies at California State Chico, courses such as Introduction to Religion and Science and Religion.

Greg went to Berkeley from a non-Christian background and found God. Not the usual scenario. I went to Berkeley as a Christian and emerged as a Christian, but with a lot of soul searching and wrestling in the process. The tools for dealing effectively with the questions raised at the interface of science and Christian faith did not exist (at least I didn’t find them). The local church (First Presbyterian, Berkeley) was good, but not much help on this front. Bracketing the questions away for a time was the only way forward. Today there are many resources available. Mere Science and Christian Faith is a nice addition to the mix and comes from a fresh perspective.

Greg is convinced from his experience working with emerging adults that questions surrounding science and Christian faith are often in play, either overtly – leading to explicit conflict and questions, or under the surface. His book is aimed at pastors and ministry leaders as well as 18-30 year-old emerging adults. It is designed to help people think through the issues involved and to develop the tools for interaction and engagement as new challenges arise. He calls it both a manifesto (“it’s designed to convince you that the church must embrace mainstream science for its future“) and a field guide (“[it] presents a  picture of what it looks like to pursue this kind of work“).

Greg’s approach to science and Christian faith is well summarized by the following:

Whatever human knowledge discovers in nature, we are bound to listen, to learn, and to engage with it. Why? Because God has spoken and continues to speak through Scripture and through the natural world – through both words and works – albeit in different modes. Faith and science are not in a wrestling match where one will be the victor. In fact, Christians throughout the ages have celebrated that the same God who is visible in science is revealed in the pages of the Bible. (p. 8)

He suggests that the church must work at integrating science and faith for several reasons. One reason is evangelism, spreading the good news. Science is such a significant force in our culture that the Christian message must engage science. But this isn’t the only reason. We should also continue to build on the “legacy of Christian’s contributions to natural science.” (p. 10) Creation is from God and as Christians we are compelled to study it. Science has had a long and fruitful relationship with Christianity. While conflict gets most of the press, conflict has not been the rule. For many Christians, past and present, scientific study is a form of worship. There is a practical reason for engagement as well – it is only through Christian engagement with science that we can be an effective moral and ethical voice in the world. Ignorance and dismissal of science leads to contempt and disregard in society. Francis Collins (current head of the National Institutes of Health) has emphasized this often … the ethical issues raised by scientific discoveries need Christian voices in the mix.

Engaging with science doesn’t mean wholesale acceptance of every scientific claim – but thinking critically, taking Scripture seriously, and engaging with the data honestly. In a section laying the groundwork Greg defines terms and concepts – faith, Christianity, theology, science. He concludes with a very helpful summary:

All this adds up to the conviction that, before we seek to integrate science and faith, we have to grasp their inherent differences. Theology at its core focuses on God who is supernatural – that is, above or beyond nature (super means “above” in Latin, as in “not defined or limited by”). Science, on the other hand is limited in scope to the natural world and its interactions and laws. This is the meaning of methodological naturalism (an often misunderstood term, especially in the Christian world): the methods of science are designed to find what the natural causes are. (pp. 16-17)

From a Christian perspective, God is not limited in scope by the natural world. Rather he stands above or over it. But he also provides meaning and purpose, a basis for value judgments like good and evil, and for concepts like beauty. At the end of chapter 2, Greg looks at addressing New Atheism (i.e. science as a worldview often termed scientism). Science as a worldview sees the natural cause and effect as the whole story. The universe is a physical system and there is no meaning or purpose in the physical laws of cause and effect, electromagnetic fields, gravity, entropy, energy. These are simply brute facts governing the workings of the machine. Science explores the natural world revealing the mechanisms of cause and effect. Methodological naturalism doesn’t remove God from the picture – confined to some non-overlapping realm, but it does limit science to the study of nature.

We will dig into more of Mere Science and Christian Faith in future posts.

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Why are there four Gospels? Why do some combine them into a single narrative, a harmony? Why do some find in minute differences a world of meaning? Why are some in the Bible and not others?

If you need an introduction to such questions, and many others, here is an accessible book for you.

Francis Watson is making a name for himself as an expert on the Gospels and why there were four of them. His big book was called Gospel Writing and his newer, more accessible (but not a summary of the larger one) is called The Fourfold Gospel. The first chapter of The Fourfold Gospel is a series of questions:

More Than Four?

Apocryphal Gospels along with fragments of Gospels were all over the place in the early church, and some churches used more than our four.

To an Egyptian Christian of the third or the sixth century, the answer to the question “How many gospels?” might not have been straightforward. He or she would be aware that just four gospels were authorized for reading in church, and yet be convinced lat authentic and valuable gospel literature was to be found beyond the church’s limit.

At this time there was still nothing inherently wrongheaded about the Rhossian adoption of a further gospel, even for an impeccably orthodox bishop. Nevertheless, the request for permission to use it also implies an established usage of other texts. We may assume (though we cannot be sure) that no one ever wrote to Serapion for permission to use Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. |

If the New Testament contains four gospels, that does not mean that only four gospels were written. It means that four gospels were selected from a wider range of gospel literature to serve as a basis for the church’s preaching, teaching, and worship. The four-gospel collection is the work not just of individual evangelists but of the church.

Fewer Than Four?

Matthew and Luke incorporate most of Mark; did they think they were replacing Mark? Watson thinks Luke used Matthew: did he think he was replacing Matthew?

So the questions arise: Do we have here two gospels, or two editions of a single gospel? Does Luke then add a third edition? Are the evangelists more like individual authors or anonymous editors?

Have Matthew and Luke produced new editions of older material, perhaps even in competition with each other? Does either of them envisage any future for Mark as an independent work?

However these texts were originally related, all that changes when they are set alongside one another within the fourfold canonical collection. The church’s decision to acknowledge four gospels does not simply recognize them for what they are; it also bestows on each of them its own independent status and validity.

Why “Gospel”?

But the gospel itself is not written. It is an interpersonal event, a communication in which one speaks and others hear, occurring at a particular time and place. The gospel for Paul is “the gospel of Christ,” for it is Christ who has sent him to preach it, Christ who speaks through it, and Christ who is its content.

A written text that narrates this same train of events is certainly gospel-like, but the extension of the term “gospel” into the sphere of writing still needs an explanation.

Until, he says, Mark 1:1 and Mark’s attempt to make his book a Gospel.

The underlying idea is that his text is the embodiment and continuation of the original apostolic preaching. In writing the gospel, the evangelist ensures that the apostolic testimony is extended to future generations.

Watson needs to take more cue from 1 Cor 15 and even from a more basal expression, 2 Tim 2:8, not to ignore the gospel sermons in Acts (all confirming again CH Dodd’s point). There the “gospel” itself is an announcement of the prime events in the life of Jesus and their saving impact, so the Gospels are called “gospel” because they tell that same story.

Why the Evangelists’s names?

Yes, they appear to be originally anonymous, though this is not as known as some thing. But he thinks it was the recognition by the church of these four Gospels that led to the use of a name with them: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

What makes the names necessary is the construction of the canonical boundary. A line is drawn around certain texts that definitively separates them from other similar texts. To draw the line at all, the texts it encloses must be identifiable. That is why the first full set of evangelists’ names—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—appears at precisely the moment when it is first claimed that the church must acknowledge just four gospels.

Key figure: Irenaeus.

Why These Four?

There was nothing inevitable about the four-gospel collection. None of the individual evangelists would have anticipated it. If they had done so, they might not have welcomed it: differences between gospels can often be interpreted as active disagreements.

One way or another, use or awareness of four gospels must have had a broad-enough basis for Irenaeus’s proposal that there should be four gospels to seem plausible and reasonable.

The fourfold canonical gospel might have turned out quite differently, but that does not make it “arbitrary.” It took the form it did not because some bishop or council forcibly imposed it on an unwilling or unthinking majority but because of countless small-scale decisions about which texts were to be copied and used and which were to be passed over. Irenaeus’s concept of a fourfold gospel offers an interpretation of the general tendency of those small-scale decisions, and his interpretation became normative only because it was and still is accepted as credible and true.

The excellence of this book is in spite of the fact that there is a spelling issue — we have four Gospels (upper case for books) and we preach the gospel (lower case for message). This is not a British issue (where it seems gospel is used for both), but this is an American publisher and the book has double quotation “marks,” not that elegant English single quotation ‘mark’.

My belief is that American evangelical (broadly defined) Christianity’s perception of its relation of the church and state is Kuyperian and it is important therefore to understand Kuyperianism. In a broad sense this Kuyperian tradition focuses on God’s cosmic rule under Christ and that the gospel sets out to redeem the whole of creation, not just individuals. This theme touches on one of N.T. Wright’s common touchpoints that pushes against what he and others perceive to the commonsense evangelicalism.

What then is the mission (of the church, of God, of individuals?) if this broader Kuyperian framework is adopted?  We are looking at Craig Bartholomew’s comprehensive sketch of the Kuyperian tradition, and in this chp we are treated to a special clarification of mission. (See Contours of the Kuyperian Tradition.)

He opens early with some Lesslie Newbigin summary on mission:

Since the life of the church as a whole, both as a gathered community and as a scattered people throughout the world, is the major means by which the Spirit executes his mission in the world, the entire life of the church can be characterized from one aspect as witness or missional. However, not every activity is aimed at inviting people to repent and believe in Christ. All of Christian life has a missional dimension, but not all of it is characterized by a missional intention.

But his focus in this chp is Kuyper, and really not so much Kuyper as the Kuyperian tradition, so he focuses on J.H. Bavinck, famous Reformed Kuyperian tradition missiologist. (He’s the nephew of H. Bavinck.) J.H. Bavinck is a 20th Century missiologist, therefore subsequent to Kuyper, and Bavinck was deeply involved in the ecumenical missionary conferences of the 20th Century. Bavinck was more of a John Stott type.

Mission is that activity of the church throughout the whole world—which in its deepest essence is an activity of Christ himself—through which it calls the nations in their diversity to faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ, demonstrates to them by the signs of [its] service and ministry how the salvation of Christ encompasses all of life, and at the same time teaches them to look forward to the perfection of the Kingdom, in which God will be all in all.

Which gives rise to “what about the kingdom?” and the typical Kuyperian theory of kingdom comes to the surface next, in the words of Bavinck himself:

In our time we still struggle with the idea of the Kingdom of God. For a long time Christians have overemphasized the fact that the Christian faith is something that concerns man’s innermost being and is the way to salvation, without paying enough attention to the fact that faith places man in the perspective of the Kingdom Something of the power of the new life in Jesus Christ must penetrate social and economic life, commerce and industry, science and art. We must not leave any sector of individual or social life to its own devices. God wants us to gather together right now all things in this world under one head, Christ.

Four of his emphases deserve more emphasis today in the missional theology discussion:

Bavinck took as his point of departure the assumption that the Bible contains God’s complete revelation, which is valid for all peoples and all times.

Bavinck rightly notes just how foundational the doctrine of creation is for mission. … Covenant is also vital for mission, since it rejects a natural bond between Yahweh and Israel.

Bavinck’s recognition of mission as the characteristic of the time between the already and the not-yet of the coming of the kingdom is a seminal insight and fundamental for missiology. Bavinck notes, “The gospel contains something of the glory of a king’s commission. It must therefore end with a summons to proclaim the kingship of Christ over the whole world.”

But especially this next one: the notion that we can simply listen and discern what God is doing fails the biblical text and Bavinck was in the right with this idea of mission: God, yes; preaching, yes:

We go into one land after the other throughout the entire world; we seek, and we preach, and all the time it is God who completes his work of reconciliation through us. For in his work of reconciliation God is concerned not only with individuals, but also with the “world,” and in turning to the world, God takes us along. Missionary work is thus anchored in divine activity.

So the church, not to be reduced to mission for Bavinck, has three themes to its mission: doxological, Word-of-God, and for the world.

Bavinck, emerging as he did both from concrete missionary experience and from international discussions on missiology, engaged the religious question, the religious quest, and the religions with a five fold typology:

1. the sense of belonging to the whole, the cosmos: the relationship of I and the cosmos; 2. the sense of transcendent norms: the relationship of I and the norm; 3. the sense that somehow our existence is governed: the relationship of I and the riddle of my existence; 4. the sense of a need for redemption: the relationship of I and salvation; and 5. the sense of our relatedness to a superior power: the relationship of I and the supreme power.

The danger today, Bavinck saw and is to be seen even more today in the West when mission confidence is all but collapsed, is syncretism:

For Bavinck, it is possible that syncretism is more dangerous than outright opposition, since the syncretistic reception of Jesus can paralyze the preaching of the gospel. “It may work like a slow poison that sucks away the Church’s strength. But whatever the Church may meet, it is clear that it has the duty to speak honestly and with dignity with the other religions.”

So, here Bavinck’s contributions:

Mission is of the essence of the church.
Scriptural.
[There is much] Western baggage.

From Roger Olson:

Now, to read a good book on this topic, R. Olson, The Journey of Modern Theology

SMcK: I would some additional elements. First, I see progressivism as a kind of eschatology and thus it packages some major elements of liberalism into a theory of progress. Perhaps, second, as important is this: Progressives tend toward centralization of power, both politically and theologically, though the latter is more nuanced than the former.

Once Roger posted on this and I posted too but then I asked UMC pastor, overall good-guy and died-in-the-wool progressive (but is a progressive so described?), Bo Sanders and he said this in response to Roger’s long-ago post that some progressives have taken over the term liberal:

My contention is that saying progressives are really just liberals who don’t like the ‘L’ word is like saying that athletes and baseball players are really just the same thing. While baseball players are athletes, not all athletes play baseball. It’s an inexact statement. They aren’t exactly the same thing.

There is as big a difference between liberal and progressive as there is between evangelical and emergent. There may be some overlap, but to equate the two is unhelpful.

Here is the most basic definition I can provide – it comes from John Cobb, the greatest living American theologian:

• Liberal simply means that one’s experience is a valid location for doing theology. [SMcK: I’m not so sure it is accurate to locate liberalism in experience only. Liberalism is tied to Enlightenment and therefore liberalism is modernism, too. Which shifts its basis from experience.]
• Progressives are liberal folks who have learned from Feminist, Liberation and Post-Colonial critiques. *  [SMcK: this didn’t do much for me then and even less now, but what follows is a bit better.] …

Liberal is simply a constellation of positions and answers to question that were established in the Enlightenment.

Liberal is a settled matter. It has accepted the basic inherited framework to be the as-is structure and conceded the basic ground-rules as given. [SMcK: I just don’t know how one could say it is “settled.” My read of liberal theology and liberal theories about society is that they shift. Still, yes, a response to Enlightenment.]

Progressive on the other hand is to question, to wrestle, and to push. Progressives don’t  necessarily think that all progress is good and certainly don’t think that history is inevitable. …

So even if you just want to say that progressives are aggressive liberals, that would be more accurate. [This is where I’d locate the eschatological element and the activist element. I’d also say that their aggression is connected to power, to how social forces are used to effect change — activism, voting, majority. It seems, too, that “aggressive liberal” proves Roger Olson’s point.]

Liberals concede the rules of game, they just want to pick the better of the provided options. Progressives question the as-is possibilities of the given structures. This causes progressive to engage in critical examination and to re-evaluate both the road ahead and the road that delivered us here.

Now to Roger’s list:

Gradually, however, in my experience (as a Christian theologian for almost forty years now), “progressive Christianity” has by-and-large become a replacement for what used to be called “liberal Protestantism” (although it can be found in some Catholic circles as well).

The first signal (of liberal Protestantism disguised as “progressive Christianity”) is a disinterest, especially among Christian leaders (of congregations, denominations, and organizations) in doctrine. That’s sometimes difficult to detect because progressive Christians (as I mean that here) often talk about doctrines but only as historical relics, not as living realities to be protected and defended (even if reinterpreted and translated for the sake of understanding).

The second signal is a distinct tendency to replace doctrines, in terms of importance for membership and leadership, with “kindness” and “inclusion” as well as “social justice”—usually for some newly discovered “oppressed group.” Included in this tendency is a complete abandonment of church discipline especially as that relates to doctrinal accountability and sexual behavior (except for what is illegal).

A third signal is a determination, however, slow and subtle, to accommodate to trends within academic culture—regardless of their fitness with Scripture and tradition. In other words, the so-called “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” shifts beyond being an equilateral to being one in which reason (defined as what the American academy and its movers and shakers consider reasonable and normal) and experience (defined as what the American academy its movers and shakers consider normal and acceptable) dominate Scripture and tradition. Something to listen for is this now common saying in progressive Christianity circles: “Who cares what Paul said? I follow Jesus.”

A fourth signal is an elevation of inclusiveness to a virtue bar none (or “par none”) within the church, denomination, and/or Christian organization. Of course, “inclusiveness” is never complete; persons perceived to be “discriminatory” in any manner (language, behavior, sentiment) are marginalized if not ostracized.

A fifth signal is the abandonment of the “language of Zion” by which I mean traditional Christian concepts such as “sin,” “repentance,” “salvation,” “return of Christ,” and, yes, “judgment of God.” These are replaced by concepts such as “Kingdom of God” or “city of God”—interpreted as a condition of social justice including inclusion of all people equally without judgment (except discriminatory or perceived intolerance).

A sixth signal is implicit universalism—a complete abandonment of any mention of hell—except perhaps as a code word for misery in this life usually described as oppression—both the oppressed and the oppressors are in a living “hell” from which they need deliverance through social transformation which often includes social engineering via politically correct language.

A seventh signal is the way in which the Bible is described—not as a supernaturally inspired and unique message from God, possessing final authority for faith and practice—but as “our sacred stories”—different in degree but not in kind from other great and inspiring writings.

An eighth signal is the complete abandonment of belief in the supernatural together with a strong emphasis on the immanence of God in all people. The “imago dei” gets reinterpreted as a presence of God in every human person. Together with this comes a tendency to horizontalize Christian recognition of God’s presence—as totally within historical movements for justice and completely within the “face of the other”—especially the weak, the vulnerable and the marginalized.

Finally, a ninth signal is the adoption of hostile language about groups of human beings who dare to defend traditional values. They are often lumped together with racists, bigots, oppressors, “fundamentalists,” and even “red necks” solely because they hold to traditional “family values” or express the opinion that too much is changing too fast in terms of what is acceptable within the church and society.

As in fundamentalism, within many progressive Christian circles an echo chamber develops. In this one, though, those “out of touch” with the latest trends in sociology, social work, education, journalism and the social sciences in general are effectively silenced. There develops a “fundamentalism of the left” that is not really inclusive at all.

Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2018/02/progressive-christianity-beware/#sDzwAxzO3X6SxQKG.99

By Mike Glenn

Bishop Joseph Walker III is the pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. The African American mega-church is one of the largest in Tennessee, with a membership of over 30,000 people. He is also the Presiding Bishop of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International. The denomination has over 5,000 churches across America. Needless to say, Bishop Walker is a very busy man.

Bishop Walker is also a friend of mine.

Our friendship started over a cup of coffee. I called him because I wanted to talk to him about his social media presence. I’m always looking for individuals who are doing things I want to do but who are doing them a lot better than I am. Bishop Walker is doing social media better than I am. In fact, he’s doing it better than most people I know.

Have you seen Bishop Walker on social media? He’s a social media ninja! The man is amazing. He’s on something somewhere all of the time. So, we talked about platforms and philosophies. We talked about our families and the joys and challenges of being pastors in Nashville.

Somewhere in the conversation, we became friends. Soon after that, we became brothers. Because we’re brothers, we talk about everything. He likes the Cavaliers, and I like the Warriors. He’s a big fan of the NFL, and I love college football. We talk about being fathers and husbands. We talk about working out.

And we talk about race.

He’s African American. I’m white.

We have a lot to talk about.

Nashville has been spared a lot of the racial anguish found in other southern cities because of music. The rule in Nashville is “if you can play, you can stay.” The radio didn’t care what color you were. A lot of classic country hits were played by black musicians, and no one knew. If you can find an old-timer from the Nashville music scene, they’ll tell you stories about playing all night in the studio with black musicians, and then having to go to separate restaurants when they would break for dinner.

But Nashville still has its history. Because we’re brothers, I can ask Bishop questions you normally wouldn’t ask another person. One day I asked him, “What’s it like being black in Nashville?” and I couldn’t believe his answer. I was so devastated that I had Bishop Walker come talk to our church staff. We couldn’t believe the stories he told, but how could we? We’re all white.

He told us about being pulled over in certain sections of town for “driving while black.” As a bishop, he has a nice car, and in certain areas of town, a black man driving a nice car only means one thing to some people—trouble.

He told us that when he’s walking out of a mall and finds himself walking out with a white woman, he’ll drop back and stay a certain distance from her so he won’t frighten her or cause her concern.

He told us stories about conversations he has with the students in his church about how they should act—what to do and what not to do—if these young adults have any dealings with police officers. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying police are racist. I’m saying the black community is afraid. Scared people never make good decisions.

We talk about “white privilege.” “OK,” I ask, “What is that?” Here’s Bishop’s definition: white privilege is the assumption a child in a black community has the same opportunities as a child in a white community. It’s the assumption that what is available to me as a white male is available to everyone. That assumption is false. The sad truth is there are children born in Middle Tennessee who don’t have a chance because of what side of the street they are on.

And that’s wrong. Not only is it wrong, it’s sin. Our churches cannot stand by and watch young men and women, created in the image of God, never fulfill their destinies. God will hold us accountable for such failures of stewardship.

Because we started talking, our churches started talking. Last year, we jointly sponsored a community outreach event near Bishop Walker’s church. We’re scheduled to do another similar event this year as well. We’re planning a joint worship service, and there’s an ongoing conversation about how our two churches can continue to be engaged in ways that will open doors, break down walls, and build communities that enhance the lives of everyone.

During the month of February, Black History Month, Bishop Walker and I are doing a live video every Monday to talk about race and how we can best respond to the needs of our communities. Honestly, it’s just the two of us talking like we do when we have coffee. These conversations seem to have caught an audience.

Our nation has become fixated on the issue of racial reconciliation. Politicians talk and experts write books about how we got here and about how slavery has been properly addressed in our nation, but after all of the speeches and books, what’s changed?

Bishop Walker and I are convinced the local churches across our nation must become leaders on the issue of race. Pastors have to start conversations with each other and local churches have to begin to work together in their own neighborhoods and communities. We have to get past who’s to blame and whose fault everything is and simply have the Christ-like attitude that asks, “How can I best love my neighbor? How can I, in the name of Jesus, help my brother? What can my brother and my sister teach me about Jesus that they’ve learned on their journeys?”

Racial reconciliation won’t happen when different laws are passed. It will happen when “they” become “us”—when the African American Bishop becomes Joseph, a man with a wife, two kids, a large church, and a killer social media platform and when Dr. Glenn becomes just “Mike.”

When Joseph and Mike start to have a conversation about what it means to follow Christ in their worlds and when this conversation is repeated a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times, then, maybe, at long last, love will win, and we’ll see some progress on the issue of race in America.

I’m not naïve. I don’t expect our conversations to change the world. I will say, however, that I know Mt. Zion has changed. I know Brentwood Baptist Church has changed. I know Bishop Walker has changed. I’ve changed. That may not be much, but it’s a start.

By Michelle Van Loon

www.michellevanloon.com
www.ThePerennialGen.com

“They’re back from another conference,” one of my former pastors said in a staff meeting, shaking his head in mock exhaustion.

He didn’t need to explain who “they” were, or even what conference “they’d” attended. We knew he was referring to a clique of women who went as often as they could to conferences featuring their favorite teachers and worship leaders. Themes and subject matter were usually secondary in importance to the women. They were there for the experience. Because they’d sacrificed time and money to be there, they expected a great spiritual payoff. They enjoyed the sense of community and purpose they felt at these events among a self-selected group of like-minded others, and the ability to get away from their daily lives in pursuit of “more of God”.

As the pastor then noted, the local church was usually the recipient of their post-conference let-down. This let-down manifested itself in books and CDs of messages from conference speakers pressed into the hands of church leaders, and a general air of malcontent because congregational life was far from the ideal they’d experienced at the conference. Though they said they wanted to bring back to the church what they’d learned, all of us on staff recognized that they often functioned as though it was the local church versus the conference circuit – and the local church always lost.

Though in this case, the women were dedicated to attending conferences sponsored by a loosely-connected string of Charismatic ministries, I’ve seen this tension between local church and conference experience play itself out among those attending women’s conferences, pastor’s gatherings, and various denominational/church network assemblies.

If you or your kids have ever gone away to a week of Christian summer camp, you may be familiar with the post-camp let-down. Camp was so fun, so 24/7 intense, and, in the best cases, so spiritually invigorating that it served as a proverbial “mountain top” kind of experience. As we all know, there’s nowhere to go but down from a peak. And down can be crash into disappointment as the camper struggles to integrate their camp experience into their everyday life. Adults are not immune to this same syndrome, though in most cases, it comes in a milder form.

There is great value in leaving the everyday and gathering with like-minded others for a focused purpose. Israel’s three yearly pilgrim feasts (Passover, Shavuot/Pentecost, and Sukkot) prescribed by God in the Law served as a time for the entire nation to gather for worship, teaching, prayer, and fellowship. Being in an out-of-the-ordinary environment together before God allowed the people to reconnect with their identity and calling as a light to the nations in community.

The benefits of these pilgrim festivals have echoed in Christian history from the beginning, whenever a group of leaders convened for a spiritual purpose. (I can’t imagine that the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 simply scheduled a couple of debates to hash out their differences without also talking, sharing stories over meals, and worshipping the risen Messiah together!) The camp meetings that marked revival-minded Protestant history in America during the 1800’s and beyond were the immediate predecessor to today’s conferences, and contained the same basic elements of teaching, worship, and shared life in ad-hoc community.

I’ve benefitted greatly over the years from attending conferences, and from being involved in organizing a few. I recognize both the luxury and the value of setting aside some time to focus on being spiritually equipped in some specific way in the company of others who are there for the same reason. I also recognize the temptation to compare apples and oranges: the conference experience is, at its heart, just that – an experience. If what happens at a conference ultimately stays at a conference because it cannot translate into everyday life at home, in the community, or in the local church, then I’m not sure any real equipping has happened. That is not the fault of conference organizers. It is a problem of discipleship. Sadly, it seemed to me that the women in our former church who ran from one mountaintop conference experience to the next struggled to translate those experiences into the flatlands of daily life.

Though a conference may promise it will equip a believer, the real equipping process happens once the event is over. One practice that has been helpful for me making notes of possible applications from the event, and then putting it away for a couple of weeks. Reviewing it after some time has passed almost always gives a bit of perspective once the after-event glow has faded. Only then do I try to figure out how to apply what I’ve learned in my local church context or community. It’s not foolproof, but it’s been a help for me in walking out the inspiration or teaching I’ve received at a conference.

What has your experience been with conference attendance? What has been most valuable to you from those experiences? Have you seen the dynamic of “church vs. conference” at play in your own congregation?