Scientism

THE “ISMS”
SCIENTISM
DR. JIM DIXON
PSALMS 8, HEBREWS 1
OCTOBER 10, 2010

Science is the study of the physical and natural world by systematic observation and experiment. Scientism has a bigger appetite. Scientism is the belief that through systematic observation and experimentation you can examine and know all truth. So today we look at scientism.

Typically, those who are characterized by scientism do not believe in God. They believe that the physical and natural world is the summation of truth. They are atheistic. With regard to the universe, scientism teaches that cosmology begins with the Big Bang, when the matter and mass was shot into the galactic void, perhaps fifteen billion years ago. For them, that is an explanation of the universe’s existence, they need no God. For scientism, life evolved out of the primordial ooze through a combination of light and chemicals, forming the first living cell. The through cell mutation and natural selection, life grew into all the complexity of living creatures existent on the earth today. There is no need of God. This all takes place through spontaneous generation and through Darwinian evolution.

There is this view that man came from more primitive primates, who in turn came from more primitive mammals. There is this view that you can see the development of man from a hairy quadrupedal animal to a hairy bipedal animal to a less hairy bipedal animal to a guy in a pin-striped suit. You can look in Time Life Books, etc. and see these flow charts of the development of man over time. You can see the development from Ramapithecus to Australopithecus to homo habilis or homo erectus or homo sapiens or homo sapiens, which is what you are—that means wise man. Homo sapiens means wise man.

But are you wise enough to ask any questions? Are you wise enough to pose any questions? How does Christianity respond to all of this godless view of life and the cosmos? What is the Christian response?

I want to begin by acknowledging, in humility, that Christians have not always responded so well. Christians have not always responded to the scientific world well. You can go back and look at the geocentric and heliocentric debate of the 16th century and you can see that Christians did not respond very well. Copernicus died in 1543. Copernicus taught that the earth is not the center of the universe. That teaching was radical and very controversial and therefore Copernicus was renounced by the church as a heretic. He was renounced by the Roman Catholic Church; he was also renounced by Martin Luther; so, Copernicus was renounced by both Catholics and Protestants. He was renounced by the entire Christian world for saying the earth is not the center of the universe.

The church taught that the earth had to be the center of the universe. Why would Christ have come to earth if it wasn’t the center of the universe? Copernicus himself had no desire to alienate or offend the church of Jesus Christ, and certainly no desire to offend Christ. Copernicus wrote and often declared that all of his work was dedicated to Pope Paul III, the church of Jesus Christ and to Christ himself, but he was renounced by the church as a heretic.

Twenty-one years after his death, Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy, born near the tower where he is alleged to have conducted experiments in gravity. That was the year 1564 that Galileo was born. Galileo became, in his time, perhaps the most famous astronomer in the world and perhaps one of the greatest physicists on earth. Everybody waited, in 1613, for the publication of his paper on Copernican Theory; everybody wanted to see what the great Galileo would say about Copernican theory. Did he believe that the earth was the center of the universe as Ptolemy taught, or had he gone the route of Copernicus? Does he view the universe as heliocentric?

Galileo publishes his paper in 1613, and agrees with Copernican Theory. But understand that Galileo received all of his education in monasteries. He had no desire, again, to offend Christ, the people of Christ, the church of Christ. He was brought to ecclesiastical council, condemned as a heretic. In 1632, he published his famous work Dialogue Between Two Worldviews. Those two worldviews were the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian view and the Copernican view. He argued that it is not un-Christian to believe that the earth is not the center of the universe, so he sided with Copernicus.

Today, we know that neither the earth nor the sun is the center of the universe. It is not geocentric; it is not heliocentric. But in our solar system, the sun is the center and all the planets revolve around the sun; it’s heliocentric. Yet you see the church of Jesus Christ did not handle the truth of science very well.

Scroll forward in time, you come to 1979 and Pope John Paul II. He establishes a commission to examine what the church did with Galileo, and whether what the church did was wrong. Three years later, 1982, the commission issues a declaration that the church was wrong. We could have known that in three minutes; it took three years. In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared Galileo exonerated by the church, more than 300 years after his death.

So, we begin with humility and acknowledging that Christianity has not always responded well to the world of science. On the other hand, the reverse is also true that science has not always handled well issues of the church. Science has not always handled well the truth of theology. Science has sometimes entrenched itself and taken dogmatic entrenched views in opposition to the church. So here we are, looking at how we today, who call ourselves by the name of Jesus Christ, who call ourselves Christians, how we should respond to scientism and the whole concept of Darwinian evolution.

I want to begin by looking at theocentricity. In fact, that is going to be our primary focus today. We are not arguing about heliocentricity or geocentricity. The church of Jesus Christ affirms theocentricity, that God is at the center of everything. It is not about the earth or the sun, it is about God. He is at the center of the universe; he is at the center of everything. This has always been the view of the church, theocentricity.

Now, to understand the Christian views, you need to understand that not all Christians view the Bible the same. Not all Christians view Genesis one, two, three and four the same. There are a variety of Christian views, even a variety of evangelical Christian views. You need to understand, and I think most of you do, that in the Bible we have a variety of literary genres. This is the will of God; the breath of God is upon the Bible and the Bible contains a variety of literary genres so that God communicates his truth through a variety of literary forms. So, in the Bible you have historical narrative, and certain parts of the Bible are written in historical narrative and you should read those portions of Scripture like a history book. God is using historical narrative. Other parts of the Bible are written in poetry and there are vast portions of the Bible written in poetry. God is communicating truth through poetry, and he wants us to understand he is using this literary genre. Some parts of the Bible God speaks through parable. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in his teaching, primarily used the literary genre of parable. A parable is a story, it is not historical narrative, it is a story that is meant to communicate a truth; it may be meant to communicate one truth, it may be meant to communicate two truths. If it communicates a whole bunch of truths, it is more of an allegory, with many different features in the story being symbolic of some truth. But parable and allegory are literary genres in the Bible.

Now, Jesus, of course, told the parable of the Good Samaritan. If you were in the audience and you raised your hand and said, “Well, let me talk to this Good Samaritan or let me talk to the wounded Jew who was on the side of the Jericho Road.” Jesus would have looked at you like, what is wrong with your mind. “Don’t you understand I am telling a parable? this is not historical narrative. This is a story, just a story meant to communicate a truth. There is no is Good Samaritan or wounded Jew by the side of the Jericho Road.”

If Jesus had just told the story of the prodigal son and you were in the audience and raised your hand and said, “Hey, let me speak to this prodigal son, let me speak to the older brother, let me talk to the dad,” Jesus would have looked at you with amazement. He would have said, “Don’t you understand this is a parable? It is not historical narrative. I am not talking about a real human dad and a couple of sons. This is a story meant to communicate eternal theological truth.” You have got to respect the literary genre.

Sometimes in the Bible you find apocalyptic literature, another literary genre. You find it in Ezekiel, you will find it in Daniel, you will find it in the book of Revelation. So, God communicates truth through apocalyptic language where numbers are often symbolic and words symbolic. So, you need to learn how to interpret passages like Revelation, Ezekiel, Daniel, but it’s apocalyptic literature. We come to the Bible and understand there are a variety of literary genres.

You look at Genesis one, two, three, and four, what literary genre is being used? Well, not all Christians agree, you see; even evangelical Christians don’t all agree. So, some evangelical Christians look at Genesis one, two, three, and four and they view it as historical narrative. You should read it like a history book. But there are other Christians who view Genesis one, two, three, and four as parable or perhaps allegory. They believe that God is using parable or allegory to communicate divine truth. They argue that there are parabolic elements, for example, in Genesis three, clear parabolic elements: magic trees, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life. If you eat of its fruit, stuff happens. You find the same tree of life in the apocalyptic literature in the book of Revelation, in the New Jerusalem. You see two trees of life one on either side of the river, but if it is parabolic, it doesn’t really matter, you are looking for what it represents, you are looking for the truth of it.

In addition to magic trees, you have a talking snake, which would be typical of parabolic literature, and that snake represents the evil one who is at work in the creation. You have an anthropomorphized God because Adam and Eve hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, though God is spirit. In Genesis, chapter three you see symbolic names. That is typical of parabolic literature. So, you have Adam, which possibly means “earth,” as Adam was taken from the earth. You have Eve, which means “life giver,” because she is the mother of all the living. You have cherubim with a magic sword to keep people out of Eden. You have those mysterious, and some would say mythical, lands of Eden and Nod. You have parabolic elements in Genesis one, two, three and four, and therefore there are some who view that Genesis account as parabolic or allegorical, or even poetic in that God is communicating eternal truth in this way.

Then there is this third school that is growing in popularity that views Genesis one, two, three and four as a combination of historical narrative and parabolic literature so that the two forms, the two literary genres are combined. There literally is an Adam and Eve, which is why in the Bible Adam and Eve are treated as historical people because there really is an Adam and Eve. Even biogeneticists and biochemists, even those who work with the history of man, acknowledge there was an original couple; there was an original couple through which the human race has come. That couple is Adam and Eve. The whole Bible treats Adam and Eve as very real. But the combined view would say there are also parabolic elements in the account, allegorical elements in the account. So, a variety of ways in which to view Genesis one, two, three and four. This affects the way in which people respond to evolution/creation and the debate. In the Christian world there are a variety of ways in which you can respond to Darwinian evolution.

The enemy of faith, the evil one and all who serve him, for that matter, those represent scientism in the form of atheism or agnosticism, they tend to like to stereotype Christians. They tend to want to view Christians stereotypically; they like to create a straw man so they can tear him down. They try to paint all Christians with one brush; they pick the type of Christian that they think is the easiest to attack and they stereotype all Christians as being like that. They paint all Christians with that brush. Part of apologetics, part of what we as Christians need to do, is to say to those in the world who do not believe, “Hey, you can’t just paint all of us with the same brush. You can’t just stereotype Christians. You have got to understand that within the Body of Christ, within the world of evangelicals, there are a variety of perspectives that are held.” I want to make sure you understand these perspectives.

The first is theistic evolution. There are many Christians who believe in theistic evolution. I went to Westmont College. There are professors at Westmont College, some of whom believe in theistic evolution, that God created the heavens and the earth through theistic evolution, or that God created life through theistic evolution. The same thing is true when you go back to Gordon College, Gordon and Barrington, back in Boston where our son Drew went. There are some teachers there at that Christian school who teach theistic evolution. It is true at Fuller Seminary, where I received my theological education. Some of the professors there teach theistic evolution. That is true at Roman Catholic colleges, universities, and schools of theology.

The official Roman Catholic view is theistic evolution. They believe that God created through evolution. There are two forms of theistic evolution and in the first form God supernaturally begins the process and then God steps back. This is almost deistic, as God steps back. God supernaturally begins the process and then cell mutation, natural selection, Darwinian evolution takes over. Because God is omniscient, because God is all-knowing, God sees the end from the beginning and God sees the glory of what it is going to become and God rejoices in it. Theistic evolution is where God supernaturally begins the process, knowing and foreknowing where it is going to go, then he steps back and watches with a smile.

The other form of theistic evolution is very different. This is a more common form of theistic evolution taught at many Christian schools and that is that God begins the process of evolution supernaturally. He starts and develops the seed of life itself, but then he continues to work the process. By this view cell mutation and natural selection are not powerful enough forces to generate the result that we see on the earth. By this view God has to help every step of the way; so, God is using, guiding, directing this process of evolution to bring it to his desired result. So, you have this view that God begins it supernaturally and stand back and you have this view that God begins it supernaturally and stays involved and continues to guide it and develop it and shape it. Theistic evolution.

In both of these views, there comes a point where God looks down and God sees this process reach the point of homo sapiens and God creates man. At some point, theistic evolutionists argue the breath of God comes upon a living pair of people. God looks down sees his desired result and God breathes on them the breath of life and part of the Imago Dei, and this couple becomes unique in all the earth, endowed with the image of God, able to do and think and accomplish things no one has ever been able to do. They are given moral volition and complete freedom of will and they ultimately abuse it as they rebel against God and are separated from God in need of redemption and a Savior. There is this view by theistic evolutionists that at some point God looks down and homo sapiens become homo sapiens sapiens as the breath of God comes upon them and they are given the Imago Dei, and that is before they rebel.

You would see this teaching, typically, in a Catholic college or university or school of theology. All Christians look at Genesis one, two, three and four and say the message is clear, whether you view it as historical narrative, or parabolic literature or a combination of the two, all Christians say, “Clearly the message is: God is the Creator, man is the crown of his creation who has received the image of God. Man has sinned and is separated from God and in need of redemption and a Savior.” These messages in Genesis one, two, three and four are held by all Christians.

Now, not all Christians are theistic evolutionists. I want to say, I am not. I am not a theistic evolutionist, but I have friends who are. I have friends who love Jesus Christ and believe that God created through theistic evolution, and I respect their view and I love them as a brother and sister in Christ.

Now, a second view you find in the Christian world is the traditional view. The second view is the traditional view, that God created in six, twenty-four-hour days. This view takes Genesis one, two, three, and four as historical narrative. Day one God creates light. Day two God creates the firmament. Day three God creates vegetation, day four luminaries. Day five God creates birds and fish, day six land animals and man. Day seven God rests. This is the traditional view. These are six literal twenty-four-hour days, and they are consecutive and there are no gaps.

This traditional view is held by many Christians. Some of those who have the six-day twenty-four-hour view of creation believe in a young earth, a la Bishop Ussher. So, they believe that the earth is like five to six thousand years old and no older. Others who are traditionalists and hold the six-day twenty-four-hour view, actually believe the earth is very old, so they would accept the evidence of paleontology that the earth is very old, but they would explain the age of the earth in a different way. Some of these who are traditionalists hold to the gap theory.

The gap theory teaches that there were two creations. The first creation was Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But then they look at Genesis 1:2 and they take the Hebrew verb to be and they put it in the past tense “with process.” So instead of, “the earth was without form and void,” they interpret Genesis 1:2 as, “the earth became without form and void.” You have this first creation and then you have this slide into formlessness and void, “the earth became without form and void,” and then Genesis 1:3 is a new creation—six days, twenty-four hour and the rest of the story. They would argue, because of this two-creation gap theory that the geological column and the fossil record of paleontology reflect the first creation. All the fossil evidence in the geological column and all the work of paleontology reflects that first creation but there was this process in which the first creation became formless and void and God re­ created in six, twenty-four-hour days. The gap theory.

The problem with that theory is that the Hebrew verb to be is in such a form that it is very unlikely you can render it “became.” “The earth was” is a much more probable rendering of the form of the Hebrew; so, “the earth became without form and void” is not a very good rendering of the Hebrew.

Now there are other traditional perspective people who hold to the apparent age theory. The apparent age theory is God created the earth with apparent age. They explain the geological column and the fossil record this way. So, when they look at cosmology, when they look at the universe and the galactic systems, they would say that God created with apparent age. It was instantaneous, ex nihilo, but with apparent age. You look at the nearest star to our sun, you can look at Proxima Centauri, and you can look Alpha Centauri, both of which are a little bit over two light years away. So, moving at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, it took over two years for the light from those stars to reach our planet—except, according to the apparent age theory, that is not true. God created the universe instantly in such a way that there was apparent age. He created it in such a way that the light from those stars was already reaching our planet, so it didn’t take 2.2 years.

You look at the nearest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy and it is Andromeda, and Andromeda is 2.2 million light years away. So, it took the light from Andromeda, 2.2 million years, moving at 186,000 miles per second, to reach us. They would say, “It appears that way, but not so. God created it instantly so that the light was already reaching us with apparent age.” You can look at the distant quasars and they are 15 billion light years away; it took 15 billion years for that light to reach us. Except they would say, “No, because God created with apparent age and the light was already reaching us.”

They say the same thing with Adam and Eve: God created with apparent age. So, you look at Adam and Eve and maybe they look like they were 18, maybe they look like they were 21, but they weren’t. They had been created with apparent age so they didn’t have to live for 18 years to look like that. They didn’t have to live for 21 years to look like that. They were created with apparent age. Then they would argue that the same thing is true with the earth itself. God created it with apparent age, a mature earth with apparent age, including a geological column which contains a fossil record.

That results in a tricky God, with a tricked-up creation. I am just telling you that with the traditional view, the six days, twenty-four-hour view, there are those who hold this perspective of apparent age and they explain the geological column and the fossil record that way. You can go on the web and you can consult the ITR site, or you can consult the BSA site, you can consult the Creation Research Institute and all their scientists. You can read Morris or Ham and they will recommend many different books to you.

I recommend you go on those sites and you research those sites, but most of them will not use the gap theory, they will not use apparent age theory but rather they will simply seek to show that evolutionary theory is only a theory and has many flaws. If you go on a site, what they will argue is that there is an absence of transitional forms. At some point in time, those who were proponents of Darwinian evolution said that, “Over the course of time, we will find the transitional forms. We are going to find it in the fossil record. Eventually paleontology and archeology will find the transitional forms that prove Darwinian evolution.” The problem is, we have never found them. They are just as absent now as ever they were.

If you go on the site, it will also point out that in Darwinian evolution there are a variety of other problems. There are problems relating to radioactive dating, whether you are talking about carbon-14, potassium-argon, or uranium-lead, all of radioactive dating methods are suspect, they claim, and cannot be trusted. If you go on their sites, you will also hear about biochemistry and biogenetics and how increasing numbers of scientists who are biogenetical and biochemical scientists are saying that there is evidence of intelligent design, and that what they see doesn’t seem to be possible by cell mutation and natural selection. There are just pointing to these things. Many of them argue, as well, that the fossil record and the geological column have been impacted by the Great Deluge and what they call “flood geology.” I would recommend to you, whatever your perspective, that you check those sites out because this is those who are giving an apologetic or a defense of the traditional view, six day, twenty-four hours.

The third perspective in the Christian world is the day-age theory. Many Christians, many evangelical Christians are day-age theorists, so there are many scientists who are proponents of day-age theory. Dr. Hugh Ross is one of the most famous scientists who has proposed day-age. We have had Hugh Ross come and speak at our church. Hugh Ross has come many times and spoken at Focus on the Family because James Dobson, through the years, has had a great respect for Dr. Hugh Ross. This is the argument that God created in six days, but each day is a vast period of time. God created in six ages; God created over this vast period of time.

This day-age theory focuses on the Hebrew word “yom,” which is the Hebrew word for day found in Genesis one and two. The thing is that in the Bible the Hebrew word yom does have some flexibility. In parabolical literature the Hebrew word yom has great flexibility. You look in the Bible at Genesis 2:4 and you see that the entire week of creation is called a yom. Each day, in the six-day week, is called a yom. Each day in the seven-day week, including the day of rest, is called a yom. But then, the whole week is called a yom in Genesis 2:4.

Then, as you look at the days, particularly the sixth day when God created man, you look at Genesis 2:7-24. In the sixth day, God begins by creating the whole world of animals. God in the sixth day creates the whole world of animals and then God creates man and man is given the responsibility of naming all the animals. Man becomes bored and God creates woman. Does all this happen in 24 hours? Here is the real key thing in day-age theory: the seventh day. Because the Bible tells us we are still in the seventh day. Go back and read Hebrews, chapter four, and it says many times we are still in the seventh day. God rests on the seventh day and we are still in the seventh day. Obviously that is not a 24-hour day. That is a day that by, by any account, has covered thousands of years, millennia. The day-age theory says all of the days should be viewed that way. The day-age theory: God creates with each day a new burst of ex nihilo creation; by his power he brings out of nothing creation, then there is a certain amount of evolution that occurs during the day before there is a new creative burst and a new day. The reason there are no transitional forms is that there are no transitional forms. The creation takes a jump to a more complex form of life because God gives new creative input with the coming of each day. This is the day-age theory. There are many who hold it.

There are also the intelligent design people, who you should read—Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer. I have read their books this year. We are getting more and more scholarly scientists from prestigious universities and colleges and graduate schools becoming advocates of intelligent design. They are not all Christians, but many of them are Christians. They are just saying that biochemically and biogenetically, as you look at the human cell, you look at the genetic code, there is just great evidence of intelligent design, great evidence of a Creator. If you look at those intelligent design people who are Christians, some of them are theistic evolutionists, some of them are traditional six-day, twenty-four-hour folks, and then some are day-age theorists.

I am wanting you to understand that within the body of Christ there are many perspectives regarding Genesis one, two, three and four and literary genre. There are many perspectives in terms of how God created the heaven and the earth and how God created life. Part of the apologetic that we should give to the unbelieving world is this information: Don’t stereotype us, don’t try to paint us this way so you can attack us, understand that in the Christian world and in the body of Christ there is more variety than that. Then, of course, we can start getting into a discussion. If you are talking to a Darwinian evolutionist who believes there is no God, you can get into a discussion, if you research it, about some of the problems that are existent with Darwinian evolution.

The final point I want to leave you with is that as Christians we are Christocentric—we are not just theocentric, we are Christocentric. For us, it all comes down to Jesus. We believe in the Trinity, that God in his fullness, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, created. That is why in Genesis we are told that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit brooded over the face of the waters, so that the Holy Spirit was active in the creation of the physical natural universe. The Bible tells us again, and again, and again that the second person in the Trinity, God the Son, was very, very active in creation that is why I shared with you Hebrews chapter 1 and he prologue of John’s gospel.

So, we look at Jesus Christ and at God and we acknowledge his majesty and his creative power. We also see his redemptive purposes. We go back to Genesis and we even look at the prophecy in Genesis, chapter three where it is prophesied that the descendant of the woman, that from the seed of the woman shall come one who will crush the serpent’s head. We know this to be a prophesy of Jesus, for he is the Messiah, the one who comes to crush the serpent’s head. From the very beginning we see the redemptive purposes of God, as soon as God breathed on man and man was endowed with his image and likeness and then man in his own freedom abused that freedom and fell into sin, God began his redemptive purposes. It all points to Christ and his coming into the world as our Savior and as our Lord. This we affirm.

I want you to come Wednesday night to hear Lee Strobel. I want you to take a deeper look at all of this. I want you to go into Inklings Bookstore and get Lee’s book, A Case for a Creator. All the Case books by Lee Strobel are already classics. We are so blessed to have Mark Mittelberg and Lee Strobel as co-directors of the Institute at Cherry Hills. You are going to hear more and more about that. I want to encourage you to get Lee’s book, I also want to encourage you to get Mark Mittelberg’s book Choosing Your Faith. I was going through this book this week, and it is just awesome and with regard to this “isms” series, virtually every “ism” we are looking at is dealt with in this book, and it is dealt with brilliantly. I want to strongly encourage you to get Mark Mittelberg’s book. I want to encourage you to get this book by a collegium of authors called To Everyone an Answer. It is just an awesome book with regard to Christian apologetics and all the issues we must deal with in Christian apologetics. Finally, Timothy Keller’s book The Reason for God, is an instant classic and we have it in the Inklings Bookstore. I want to encourage you to get that.

Some of you have said to me, “What is your view? We have talked about the theistic evolution the traditional view, the day-age view, what is your view?” I first of all want to say that my view doesn’t matter. Truly, it doesn’t because I am just your brother in Christ. I will acknowledge that my personal view is the day-age view, but I hold it with a loose hand. I believe that the traditional view is very much possible and I believe theistic evolution is possible. But I feel like as I look at all the strengths and the weaknesses, I lean towards the day-age view. What I am saying, for all of us, because we love Jesus Christ, we have been saved by his cross, and we live by his grace, understand that there is some mystery in some of these things. You can find people who take all the mystery out, and you can find people who know everything, at least claim to know everything. The Bible says we see in the mirror dimly, one day we will see face to face, now we know in part, then we will know fully. Don’t try to take the mystery out of life, rejoice in the mystery.

Understand there is a core doctrine that is clear and we are united in our belief and affirmation of it, but there is much that is mysterious and debatable, even biblically, that we might as Christians have different perspectives. I want to encourage you to love your brothers and sisters in Christ, even if they don’t think exactly like you. Don’t make six-day twenty-four-hour creation a litmus test of orthodox Christianity. God wants the body of Christ to have greater scope than that. Let’s close with a word of prayer.