By Neil Earle
On January 17 we looked at some of the charges made against the Argument from Design, especially from Richard Dawkin’s 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker. We saw that Bishop Paley’s original 1802 argument had met attacks from theologians as much as Atheists. The Design Argument ostensible shows an orderly Mind behind creation – but what kind of mind? The Nazis believed in planning and order as did the 9/11 plotters. Arguments from Nature are valuable to supplement claims of a logical coherence behind Creation (Romans 1:20) but they rarely have the last word.
Arguments from Nature can also be double-edged – the perfection of a snowflake up against Hurricane Katrina, for example. The Christian apologist Alister McGrath reports that even Thomas Aquinas’s Five Proofs (borrowed from Aristotle) were called Five Ways. McGrath also noted the fallacy of overusing the Design Argument – sometimes we are simply in awe of our own cleverness in seeing patterns everywhere (the various 666 theories across history for example).
One lesson to keep in mind is that A-Theist arguments prod believers to search out more of what they really believe and what the Bible is really saying to us (Proverbs 25:2). Our God is known as “the God who hides” (Isaiah 45:15). This means Christians may sometimes have to push some arguments back further into the Mind of God to discern what their inspired documents are really saying. Einstein called this, “Thinking God’s thoughts after Him.” This can have hidden payoffs. It can teach us more about how God put his Word together. It can also avoid foolish and unnecessary clashes with the intellectual community. For example:
– The Book of Genesis appears to be a composite of many books woven together by inspired Editors such as we see in Psalms and Proverbs 25:1. Note this in Genesis 2:4, 5:1, 6:9, 10:1.
– We seem to have two Creation Accounts in Genesis. There is the great opening Symphony of Genesis 1:1-2:3 (What went Right!) and the second account beginning in Genesis 2:4 (What went Wrong!). Scholars note that in Genesis 2:19 the animals are made AFTER Adam, unlike Genesis 1. The second account seems to describe the events of one single day (YOM) not seven days as in the first account (2:4).
– John Calvin and Christian thinkers as far back as Augustine spoke of the “divine condescension” in Scripture. This is where God writes things so that humans of any time can understand them, as in the earth-centered view of Psalm 19.
– Much feuding is avoided when Hebrew words are seen to be capable of different meanings. For example Noah’s Flood waters “covering the whole earth” (ERETZ) uses a word that is elsewhere translated “land” or “country” (Number 22:2). More careful scholarship on the part of believers often dissolves many so-called battles with science. The NT tells us that the main point of the Flood account (as factual as it appears to be) is that eight people were saved (1 Peter 3:20). In other words “Salvation History” is the Bible’s real theme. Keeping that focus prevents Christians from being drawn into false arguments and actually bringing reproach upon Scripture, as in the Scopes “Monkey” Trial (1925).