There are some books that have an 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' quality. Who is looking at the world upside down - the author or me?
'So you don't want to go to church any more?' is such a book. It is by Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman though I cannot understand why it took two men to write it. Apparently it took them four years. It is from the same publishers as 'The Shack'- 'Windblown Media'.
It is written through the narration of an assistant pastor called Jake who is in the spiritual doldrums. His church is big and successful but all is not well underneath. There is no spiritual reality. He is falling out with his senior pastor. His daughter is ill. Along comes 'John' a kind of angel/disciple/ Jesus figure (whom Jake for much of the book seems seriously to think may actually be the apostle John)who speaks of God as 'Father' and invites people to come to 'Father' (not 'the Father' or 'our Father'). The book has thirteen chapters in each of which John meets Jake in an unlikely situation - turning up just when Jake needs him, in a cafe, or even by a remote lake in the Californian hills. John just drifts around helping people in their relationship with Jesus. God through his prayer heals Jake's daughter.
Much of what 'John' says is fine, except that it is all nice. Everything is relational. He is very good on grace. Jake, who seems to have been living his Christian life as if he were on a treadmill, resigns from his ministry. His senior pastor is found to have had an affair. Jake starts up a home group, to find reality in community, but John reminds them (wise eh?) that changing the outward circumstances is not going to change the experience of relationships if they do not focus on Jesus.
Any organisation, is the message, can damage the relationship 'Father' wants for his people. Religion is bad, it is shame management; what counts is Jesus delivering us from shame. Institutional church is portrayed as universally authoritarian, manipulative, unreal, pressurising. More than once going to church (which we shouldn't say, by the way, as we 'are ' church) is described as going to a 'finely tuned performance' or a 'praise concert' with a 'teaching'. Well, if that is a church service, perhaps the authors have a point.
One could agree with a lot of what 'John' (the mouthpiece for everything the authors think is right) says - we must of course be focused on Christ as a church, though interestingly John never uses the word 'Christ' - it is always 'Jesus' and our relationship is primarily not with a triune God but with 'Father'. The problem is that this relational approach is set in stark contrast to anything institutional as if the church could be all organism but never organisation. Sure, things are bad in many of our organisational set ups, but you don't - indeed you can't - jettison organisation just because of that. This book is not only arrogant in its dismissal of 'institutional' church; it is idealistic and naive in terms of what could replace it.
Here is a Christianity where (i) community and 'real relationships' have become god; (ii) the Bible does not seem to exist except as mediated in some of the things (always positive, relational and encouraging, never challenging or guilt inducing) that John, in his wise style, says to Jake and his friends; (iii) an assistant pastor seems to know absolutely no theology and though he reads his Bible he always needs John to give him the words that actually help him; (iv) commitment is regarded as legalistic; (v) meeting together must be because people really want to and when they have found what they need they will not be able to stay away; (vi)and oh yes - preaching, the heart of worship, does not figure at all. All communication of the Word is done by John-like socratic dialogue. Very unauthoritarian, very egalitarian. You can do it around a cup of Starbucks. If you think I am joking I have this week received an email from a friend recently moved to America who is looking for a church; one he visited had comfy chairs with cup holders which fitted Starbucks cups perfectly; but there was no place for Bibles.
The trouble is, people seem to like this kind of book and think it is fantastic. Is it only in America? I fear not. People like it here. Are all hurt by church? Are all going to dysfunctional churches with anxiety-wrought, driven, driving pastors? Don't tell me that all evangelical churches are harsh, legalistic, manipulative and that they reward achievement, thereby reinforcing the tendency to works salvation. This appears to be the case in Jake's experience of church.
Sadly some churches may be like this. There are people who have been very badly hurt by church. I am not sure, however, that this is the book to help them. I fear this kind of book is fed by and feeds a Christian culture where people want the gospel to meet their needs, provide undemanding church and all with the assurance no doubt of eternal life - though the only mention of sin and forgiveness is in one phrase during a 'Lord's Supper' celebrated with cups of grape juice and bread during a garden BBQ which John assures them is what a church service is all about; worship after all is what we do all the time.
Everything, in other words, focuses on making life cosy here. It is a gospel of good human relationships through 'Jesus'. But who is this Jesus? He has no biblical or doctrinal content. Just think of all the time the early church wasted on Christological disputes - all they need have done was enjoy each other's company in their back gardens. But then, with John around every corner to give good advice, who needs the Bible, the Holy Spirit or Jesus Christ?
Friday, 9 November 2012
Defending Constantine
Peter Leithart's fascinating book on Constantine is both a defence of the great emperor and also a demolition of the political theology of John Howard Yoder. I was convinced by both parts of his scholarly polemic but less convinced by the arguments he tries to erect as an alternative to Yoder.
Leithart's portrayal of Constantine is lively and persuasive. He believes the emperor was a true Christian who throughout his reign promoted the interests of the church as far as possible but without persecuting pagans. There was therefore a measure of religious toleration for pagans under him that was lost under later emperors such as Theodosius.
There were certainly inconsistencies in Constantine and stains on his reign - the deaths of his wife Fausta and son Crispus are not fully explained, though sexual immorality probably lay behind their executions/deaths. But it is easy to criticise a man in a unique position. There was no clear blueprint for a Christian Roman emperor.
Leithart is concerned above all to unravel the myth of the 'fall' of the church at the time of Constantine. He does this pretty well, showing that there was no consistent policy of merging church and empire under Constantine or after him. There were 'moments' as Leithart calls them, when this happened, but it was not an ideological or political shift. If the church became corrupted in a time of peace was this due to alignment with the state or to too common temptations of the flesh? Does such corruption amount to the introduction of the dark ages of the church which lasted till the end of the middle ages? Was it all dark? Was the church pristine at the beginning of the 4th century anyway? Were not church and empire at loggerheads for much of the time afterwards?
If the emperor at times saw it as his duty to interfere in church affairs, did this amount to a taking over of the church?
John Howard Yoder uses 'Constantinianism' as a label, a symbol, for the view that the church was swallowed up by the state for over a thousand years and this still plagues the church today (sometimes in an even worse way than before the Reformation).
Where Leithart is in my mind quite unconvincing is in his attempt to describe Rome as nonetheless baptised, by which he means that Constantine stopped sacrifices in Rome and introduced a new political regime based on the sacrifice of Christ. Constantine 'desacrificed' Rome 'but at the same time...welcomed into his city another city, a truly just city, a city of the final sacrifice that ends sacrifice...This is the "Christianisation" achieved by Constantine, Rome baptised.' Leithart's final chapter is almost an apologia for baptism - 'all baptism is infant baptism' - as the measure of a 'Christianised' state. At least, that is what appears to come across but Leithart is a somewhat elusive writer at times.
Leithart finally is unconvincing in dismissing Yoder's pacifism, yet trying to establish the acceptability of Christian soldiers on biblical grounds when he has rejected the distinction between private and public ethics and between nature and grace. All is one for Leithart, so he is left with trying to establish that warfare is permissible for Christians without being able to restrict the ethics of 'turn the other cheek' to the private realm. He has some rather elaborate arguments based on the Old Testament and its continuity, but I shall not go into them here.
It is such an 'external' view of the blessings of the gospel which comes through in Leithart's 'federal vision' theology.
But this is still a good book, particularly for what it says about Constantine and in demythologising the rather glib way in which we speak of 'Constantinianism' as the bane of the church. There is a merger of state and church which is invariably harmful for the church but maybe Constantine was not to blame, and Constantinianism is not the best name for it.
Leithart's portrayal of Constantine is lively and persuasive. He believes the emperor was a true Christian who throughout his reign promoted the interests of the church as far as possible but without persecuting pagans. There was therefore a measure of religious toleration for pagans under him that was lost under later emperors such as Theodosius.
There were certainly inconsistencies in Constantine and stains on his reign - the deaths of his wife Fausta and son Crispus are not fully explained, though sexual immorality probably lay behind their executions/deaths. But it is easy to criticise a man in a unique position. There was no clear blueprint for a Christian Roman emperor.
Leithart is concerned above all to unravel the myth of the 'fall' of the church at the time of Constantine. He does this pretty well, showing that there was no consistent policy of merging church and empire under Constantine or after him. There were 'moments' as Leithart calls them, when this happened, but it was not an ideological or political shift. If the church became corrupted in a time of peace was this due to alignment with the state or to too common temptations of the flesh? Does such corruption amount to the introduction of the dark ages of the church which lasted till the end of the middle ages? Was it all dark? Was the church pristine at the beginning of the 4th century anyway? Were not church and empire at loggerheads for much of the time afterwards?
If the emperor at times saw it as his duty to interfere in church affairs, did this amount to a taking over of the church?
John Howard Yoder uses 'Constantinianism' as a label, a symbol, for the view that the church was swallowed up by the state for over a thousand years and this still plagues the church today (sometimes in an even worse way than before the Reformation).
Where Leithart is in my mind quite unconvincing is in his attempt to describe Rome as nonetheless baptised, by which he means that Constantine stopped sacrifices in Rome and introduced a new political regime based on the sacrifice of Christ. Constantine 'desacrificed' Rome 'but at the same time...welcomed into his city another city, a truly just city, a city of the final sacrifice that ends sacrifice...This is the "Christianisation" achieved by Constantine, Rome baptised.' Leithart's final chapter is almost an apologia for baptism - 'all baptism is infant baptism' - as the measure of a 'Christianised' state. At least, that is what appears to come across but Leithart is a somewhat elusive writer at times.
Leithart finally is unconvincing in dismissing Yoder's pacifism, yet trying to establish the acceptability of Christian soldiers on biblical grounds when he has rejected the distinction between private and public ethics and between nature and grace. All is one for Leithart, so he is left with trying to establish that warfare is permissible for Christians without being able to restrict the ethics of 'turn the other cheek' to the private realm. He has some rather elaborate arguments based on the Old Testament and its continuity, but I shall not go into them here.
It is such an 'external' view of the blessings of the gospel which comes through in Leithart's 'federal vision' theology.
But this is still a good book, particularly for what it says about Constantine and in demythologising the rather glib way in which we speak of 'Constantinianism' as the bane of the church. There is a merger of state and church which is invariably harmful for the church but maybe Constantine was not to blame, and Constantinianism is not the best name for it.
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Elders' Day, John Owen Centre
Yes this has happened - long ago, on 20th October to be exact.
I spoke on 'The Shepherd for Undershepherds', giving a biblical overview of the Lord as our shepherd and what that means for pastors/ elders; Garry Williams gave an introduction to covenant theology; and Trevor Archer spoke on 'Nurturing the Eldership'.
Over 40 men attended and it was a stimulating day with lively discussion groups in the afternoon before a final panel session. The feedback was encouraging and we shall probably do one next year as well.
If you want to see the papers, look at the John Owen Centre Website; they should be up soon, if not already. See: http://www.ltslondon.org/joc/index.php
I spoke on 'The Shepherd for Undershepherds', giving a biblical overview of the Lord as our shepherd and what that means for pastors/ elders; Garry Williams gave an introduction to covenant theology; and Trevor Archer spoke on 'Nurturing the Eldership'.
Over 40 men attended and it was a stimulating day with lively discussion groups in the afternoon before a final panel session. The feedback was encouraging and we shall probably do one next year as well.
If you want to see the papers, look at the John Owen Centre Website; they should be up soon, if not already. See: http://www.ltslondon.org/joc/index.php
Reformation and Revival Fellowship Conference
If you are interested in revival - or indeed in the Lord's work at all - why not make a late booking for the RRF conference? It is to be held at Swanwick from Monday 19th - Wednesday 21st November . The speakers are Stephen Clark, Bridgend, Paul Mallard, Birmingham and George Mitchell, Glasgow. The addresses are always of the highest order, whether expository or historical. The fellowship is warm and stimulating and the countryside in Derbyshire is great to explore in the little free time we have.
Contact George McIntyre on 01564 774966; geomac@talktalk.net.
Contact George McIntyre on 01564 774966; geomac@talktalk.net.
Westminster Fellowship
On Monday I attended the meeting of the Westminster Fellowship at Westminster chapel in London. This is the ministers' fraternal(meeting) that began under Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones in the 1950s and thrived under his leadership, but it is safe to say that since his death it has been steadily in numerical decline. There are rarely more than 18 or so men there, and only 14 on Monday.
Monday was an open meeting, when men bring matters for discussion. The morning is often a more theological subject, the afternoon is more pastoral. All the men contributed to discussion this time, and as always I found it helpful and encouraging to have been there. I started going again two years ago after a long absence of six years or so, but in the last two years I have not missed a meeting unless it couldn't be avoided.
Perhaps the most refreshing thing is to be in the fellowship of kindred minds. One can express one's views knowing that on the big issues and most of the small ones we are agreed. We also know we are in a minority, theologically speaking, representing a conservative end of the spectrum in both doctrine and practice. But the fraternal is open to any minister who can agree with the statement of faith which I should have thought would be acceptable to most evangelicals. It is not specifically Reformed but it rather looks to Evangelicals coming together on an uncompromising gospel basis, rejecting the doctrinal indifference of the 'Ecumenical movement'.
Our next meeting (we meet six times a year) is planned for 4th February when Jeremy Walker will be addressing us on the 'New Calvinism'.
Monday was an open meeting, when men bring matters for discussion. The morning is often a more theological subject, the afternoon is more pastoral. All the men contributed to discussion this time, and as always I found it helpful and encouraging to have been there. I started going again two years ago after a long absence of six years or so, but in the last two years I have not missed a meeting unless it couldn't be avoided.
Perhaps the most refreshing thing is to be in the fellowship of kindred minds. One can express one's views knowing that on the big issues and most of the small ones we are agreed. We also know we are in a minority, theologically speaking, representing a conservative end of the spectrum in both doctrine and practice. But the fraternal is open to any minister who can agree with the statement of faith which I should have thought would be acceptable to most evangelicals. It is not specifically Reformed but it rather looks to Evangelicals coming together on an uncompromising gospel basis, rejecting the doctrinal indifference of the 'Ecumenical movement'.
Our next meeting (we meet six times a year) is planned for 4th February when Jeremy Walker will be addressing us on the 'New Calvinism'.
The Republican - and Christian - Opportunity
There have been innumerable analyses of the American election result by many people far better qualified than I, but I can't resist chipping in.
The Republicans must feel devastated. They got a good proportion of the popular vote, but as one commentator said, if you can't beat a president when unemployment is high and the economy is in a bad way, you should really be looking for another job.
They say the electoral college system is unfair on the Republicans in which case things do not look good for the future. Will they change the system? The Democrats won't!
Perhaps the biggest issue is the question of who votes for whom. Very broadly, if you are white, male, old and Christian you will vote Republican; if you are black/ coloured, young, female and non-Christian you will vote Democrat. There are countless exceptions to such a broad generalisation but that is pretty well how it is. As the country grows increasingly 'secular', younger generations move away from church and the values behind opposition to abortion and gay marriage recede in influence and popularity, it is difficult to see the Republican vote growing.
One brief interview with an Hispanic man on TV spoke volumes. 'The Republicans could appeal to us' he said. 'We are conservative minded, and we are religious. But the trouble is, the Republicans don't want us here'. So Christian in morals but not in compassion - that is how Republicans are perceived.
The party will need to do some hard thinking. Perhaps this is time of opportunity.
Now is also the time for Christians to ask themselves, 'what is our responsibility in politics?' A separation between Christians and a single political party may be no bad thing. It is not necessarily healthy for Christians to think they can enforce morality through the ballot box. And in practice, what could Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have done about abortion anyway? And how long would the stance against gay marriage have been able to hold? Nor is it healthy for the evangelical church to be identified with one socio-political power bloc, even if it does hold the right moral views. The church should always be bigger than one or two moral issues.
Some time for Christians to think things through will be useful; they must adjust to new a ideological reality in America. 'One nation under God and 'In God we trust' have never been as absolutely true as some would have liked to think; they are getting less and less so. Maybe for Christians the realisation of that is no bad thing.
The Republicans must feel devastated. They got a good proportion of the popular vote, but as one commentator said, if you can't beat a president when unemployment is high and the economy is in a bad way, you should really be looking for another job.
They say the electoral college system is unfair on the Republicans in which case things do not look good for the future. Will they change the system? The Democrats won't!
Perhaps the biggest issue is the question of who votes for whom. Very broadly, if you are white, male, old and Christian you will vote Republican; if you are black/ coloured, young, female and non-Christian you will vote Democrat. There are countless exceptions to such a broad generalisation but that is pretty well how it is. As the country grows increasingly 'secular', younger generations move away from church and the values behind opposition to abortion and gay marriage recede in influence and popularity, it is difficult to see the Republican vote growing.
One brief interview with an Hispanic man on TV spoke volumes. 'The Republicans could appeal to us' he said. 'We are conservative minded, and we are religious. But the trouble is, the Republicans don't want us here'. So Christian in morals but not in compassion - that is how Republicans are perceived.
The party will need to do some hard thinking. Perhaps this is time of opportunity.
Now is also the time for Christians to ask themselves, 'what is our responsibility in politics?' A separation between Christians and a single political party may be no bad thing. It is not necessarily healthy for Christians to think they can enforce morality through the ballot box. And in practice, what could Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have done about abortion anyway? And how long would the stance against gay marriage have been able to hold? Nor is it healthy for the evangelical church to be identified with one socio-political power bloc, even if it does hold the right moral views. The church should always be bigger than one or two moral issues.
Some time for Christians to think things through will be useful; they must adjust to new a ideological reality in America. 'One nation under God and 'In God we trust' have never been as absolutely true as some would have liked to think; they are getting less and less so. Maybe for Christians the realisation of that is no bad thing.
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Darwin or Design?
Last Friday and Saturday I attended an interesting conference of the above name organised by the Centre for Intelligent Design (ID). The venue was the very comfortable and attractive Elim Pentecostal Conference Centre in the beautifully situated village of West Malvern.
The speakers were firstly Professor John Lennox , professor of mathematics at Oxford, well known for his books ('God's Undertaker - Has Science buried God?'; 'God and Stephen Hawking'; and more recently 'Seven Days that Divide the World' and 'Gunning for God'); and also for being one of the few men that Richard Dawkins is willing to debate in public; and secondly Doug Axe of the Biologic Institute in California, an ID organisation. Axe gave us two clear and careful papers on how areas of biology are undermining the theory of evolution, but it was John Lennox's two more general papers that were the main attraction for me at least - along with two very stimulating Q&A sessions.
Prof Lennox began by saying that every scientist is confronted with evidence of a designed universe and that most will admit this even if they reject a designer. The reason why the idea of design is controversial is that religion and science are deemed to be inimical and intelligent agency is usually identified with God. What we have is a world-view conflict. He helpfully discussed the case of Galileo who was not challenging 'the church' initially, so much as an Aristotelian world-view held by the scientific establishment as well as by the church of his time. The irony is, said Prof Lennox, that (following Whitehead etc) modern science would not have been possible without confidence in a lawgiver.
There are two mutually opposed world-views - materialism, and that which allows for transcendence. The result of materialism is that one ends up with a 'very tiny' human being - the'self-contempt of man' as Nietzsche said. 'Scientism' (Peter Atkins, Dawkins, Sam Harris et al) says 'What science cannot tell us man cannot know'. But where, for example, do ethical convictions come from? 'Bottom up or top down'? 'The sense of the world must lie outside the world' (Wittgenstein).
There are two questions in ID which should be kept separate: 1. Is there evidence of design? and 2. Who is the designer? The first question is scientific; the second is religious.
In his second paper Prof Lennox addressed the wide ranging question: why does it matter? He embraced a number of questions that had been asked during the conference. He touched on issues he had raised earlier, discussed world-views a little (materialism, pantheism, theism) and dealt with two matters which he believes are crucial in dealing with atheism: the first is that it undermines rationality - how can an atheist/evolutionist trust his own brain? How can an evolved brain be interested in truth? Why is it not simply interested in successful reproduction? Secondly, theists must insist that the existence of a law (eg gravity) does not do away with a designer. A law in itself is not an explanation for anything. It simply describes how something works. Yet even top scientists keep saying that because we have a law, we can dispense with the lawgiver.
Other important arguments are: from cosmology which provides evidence for design and is quite independent of evolution; and the highly current issue of information (DNA, the human genome etc) which is supremely important and with which evolutionist struggle at present.
All design, he insisted more than once, begins with a complete idea - it does not begin with one bit and then add another bit and grow piecemeal, which is what evolutionists expect us to believe.
So it was very stimulating. But what of the ID movement itself? Why, some people there were asking, are scientists so sceptical of it (well they knew that really) but more, why are some Christians sceptical of it?
Let me suggest briefly two reasons - both limitations which I believe ID should acknowledge and work with - I am not suggesting they are fatal flaws with ID but simply issues which cause reserve in some quarters.
The first is to do with the limits of science. Intelligent design is really a scientific theory. It is a theory of great explanatory power, but from the scientific point of view it should be based on evidence (no problem there ) but also be willing to yield to any contrary evidence and better theories. An 'ID movement' gives the impression that people are committed to a theory and want to promote that rather than be 'scientific' and be willing to follow the evidence wherever it takes them. ID as a 'movement' gives the impression that it is science with an agenda and that inevitably that agenda may just interfere with the objectivity to be rightly expected of scientists. It is in danger, if that were the case, of being little better than what we accuse the evolutionists of being.
One may say that a Christian of course will inevitably believe in a designer. Correct, in that he believes in God, but in his science he should be prepared to cope with any evidence he might find that, say, contradicted the theory of design. That is not impossible; there are plenty of things that challenge our faith in a good God and a purposeful God - evolutionists are throwing them up all the time, even though we know in the big picture God will always be vindicated. But science is not about God's ultimate vindication; it is about what can be discovered and analysed here and now. And ID may be suspected, as some at the conference said, of being a cover for crypto- creationists unless they can show they really do science wherever the evidence leads, and for the sake of Truth, not just supporting their theory of design.
I am not suggesting ID scientists are anything other than scientists of complete integrity ; I am saying that they perhaps need to do more to make sure this comes across.
The second reason for reserve is theological. There is firstly the issue as to where belief in a designer gets you - Muslims can give you a good argument for design or from design which in many ways differs little from a Christian's account. I know unbelievers who will often say they are convinced of God's existence because of the wonderful world we live in. But there is another argument along these lines. In Romans 1:19,20 Paul says 'For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and invisible nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.'
Now where is there mention of a designer there? We tend to assume Paul is speaking of people knowing that God is the designer in these verses. But is he? 'Eternal power' and 'divine nature' may include the fact that God is designer, but then again it may not, and may include things that are deeper than and perhaps different from 'design'.
So perhaps design, and the fact that God is designer, are not the most important things that can be said about God. It certainly is not the thing Paul seems to major on here. So when we are evangelising, we know we have a good friend in the mind of the believer - a witness to God's existence, eternal power and divine nature (and knowledge of judgement - Rom 1:32), but it seems that Paul is saying that this is something more powerful than the inference from nature that he is a designer. And is not perception (Rom 1:20) a different and deeper thing than inference or induction?
This is not to say that the argument from design has no uses, and with some people and in some contexts it may be very helpful, but it is not perhaps the hugely important thing that some people think - and they think so largely, one suspects, because it is the most obvious response to evolutionism and it is also the thing to which scientific evidence can point most easily. But that is to limit theology by the limits of science where we should be guided by the Word of God.
The speakers were firstly Professor John Lennox , professor of mathematics at Oxford, well known for his books ('God's Undertaker - Has Science buried God?'; 'God and Stephen Hawking'; and more recently 'Seven Days that Divide the World' and 'Gunning for God'); and also for being one of the few men that Richard Dawkins is willing to debate in public; and secondly Doug Axe of the Biologic Institute in California, an ID organisation. Axe gave us two clear and careful papers on how areas of biology are undermining the theory of evolution, but it was John Lennox's two more general papers that were the main attraction for me at least - along with two very stimulating Q&A sessions.
Prof Lennox began by saying that every scientist is confronted with evidence of a designed universe and that most will admit this even if they reject a designer. The reason why the idea of design is controversial is that religion and science are deemed to be inimical and intelligent agency is usually identified with God. What we have is a world-view conflict. He helpfully discussed the case of Galileo who was not challenging 'the church' initially, so much as an Aristotelian world-view held by the scientific establishment as well as by the church of his time. The irony is, said Prof Lennox, that (following Whitehead etc) modern science would not have been possible without confidence in a lawgiver.
There are two mutually opposed world-views - materialism, and that which allows for transcendence. The result of materialism is that one ends up with a 'very tiny' human being - the'self-contempt of man' as Nietzsche said. 'Scientism' (Peter Atkins, Dawkins, Sam Harris et al) says 'What science cannot tell us man cannot know'. But where, for example, do ethical convictions come from? 'Bottom up or top down'? 'The sense of the world must lie outside the world' (Wittgenstein).
There are two questions in ID which should be kept separate: 1. Is there evidence of design? and 2. Who is the designer? The first question is scientific; the second is religious.
In his second paper Prof Lennox addressed the wide ranging question: why does it matter? He embraced a number of questions that had been asked during the conference. He touched on issues he had raised earlier, discussed world-views a little (materialism, pantheism, theism) and dealt with two matters which he believes are crucial in dealing with atheism: the first is that it undermines rationality - how can an atheist/evolutionist trust his own brain? How can an evolved brain be interested in truth? Why is it not simply interested in successful reproduction? Secondly, theists must insist that the existence of a law (eg gravity) does not do away with a designer. A law in itself is not an explanation for anything. It simply describes how something works. Yet even top scientists keep saying that because we have a law, we can dispense with the lawgiver.
Other important arguments are: from cosmology which provides evidence for design and is quite independent of evolution; and the highly current issue of information (DNA, the human genome etc) which is supremely important and with which evolutionist struggle at present.
All design, he insisted more than once, begins with a complete idea - it does not begin with one bit and then add another bit and grow piecemeal, which is what evolutionists expect us to believe.
So it was very stimulating. But what of the ID movement itself? Why, some people there were asking, are scientists so sceptical of it (well they knew that really) but more, why are some Christians sceptical of it?
Let me suggest briefly two reasons - both limitations which I believe ID should acknowledge and work with - I am not suggesting they are fatal flaws with ID but simply issues which cause reserve in some quarters.
The first is to do with the limits of science. Intelligent design is really a scientific theory. It is a theory of great explanatory power, but from the scientific point of view it should be based on evidence (no problem there ) but also be willing to yield to any contrary evidence and better theories. An 'ID movement' gives the impression that people are committed to a theory and want to promote that rather than be 'scientific' and be willing to follow the evidence wherever it takes them. ID as a 'movement' gives the impression that it is science with an agenda and that inevitably that agenda may just interfere with the objectivity to be rightly expected of scientists. It is in danger, if that were the case, of being little better than what we accuse the evolutionists of being.
One may say that a Christian of course will inevitably believe in a designer. Correct, in that he believes in God, but in his science he should be prepared to cope with any evidence he might find that, say, contradicted the theory of design. That is not impossible; there are plenty of things that challenge our faith in a good God and a purposeful God - evolutionists are throwing them up all the time, even though we know in the big picture God will always be vindicated. But science is not about God's ultimate vindication; it is about what can be discovered and analysed here and now. And ID may be suspected, as some at the conference said, of being a cover for crypto- creationists unless they can show they really do science wherever the evidence leads, and for the sake of Truth, not just supporting their theory of design.
I am not suggesting ID scientists are anything other than scientists of complete integrity ; I am saying that they perhaps need to do more to make sure this comes across.
The second reason for reserve is theological. There is firstly the issue as to where belief in a designer gets you - Muslims can give you a good argument for design or from design which in many ways differs little from a Christian's account. I know unbelievers who will often say they are convinced of God's existence because of the wonderful world we live in. But there is another argument along these lines. In Romans 1:19,20 Paul says 'For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and invisible nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.'
Now where is there mention of a designer there? We tend to assume Paul is speaking of people knowing that God is the designer in these verses. But is he? 'Eternal power' and 'divine nature' may include the fact that God is designer, but then again it may not, and may include things that are deeper than and perhaps different from 'design'.
So perhaps design, and the fact that God is designer, are not the most important things that can be said about God. It certainly is not the thing Paul seems to major on here. So when we are evangelising, we know we have a good friend in the mind of the believer - a witness to God's existence, eternal power and divine nature (and knowledge of judgement - Rom 1:32), but it seems that Paul is saying that this is something more powerful than the inference from nature that he is a designer. And is not perception (Rom 1:20) a different and deeper thing than inference or induction?
This is not to say that the argument from design has no uses, and with some people and in some contexts it may be very helpful, but it is not perhaps the hugely important thing that some people think - and they think so largely, one suspects, because it is the most obvious response to evolutionism and it is also the thing to which scientific evidence can point most easily. But that is to limit theology by the limits of science where we should be guided by the Word of God.
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