Commentaries

My number one piece of advice to people studying academic theology at doctrinally mixed or liberal universities is to read good evangelical commentaries on the relevant passages. I find here a good place for recommending evangelical commentaries on books, though I disagree with some of their selections.

A while ago, I was asked about the NIV Application Commentaries series. I've recently had occasion to skim quite a lot of commentaries, and I can make the following points:

• They're probably more consistently solid as a series than Tyndale (or even BST). Some of that is down to the format. On the other hand, I don't think there's anything spectacularly amazing in the series - I think that's also down to the format.
• They're not heavyweight in terms of textual stuff, translation issues, etc but they do mention them. A few of them are shortened versions of other stuff in print (e.g. Smith's very good commentary on Amos).
• They're ok at applications (better than Tyndale / BST) - they probably make it a lot easier to preach a decent sermon on a passage, but not much easier to do an excellent one

Intellectual Honesty

I'm currently at a Church of England theological college in Oxford. One of the things that really struck me when I moved here was the intellectual honesty of the place.

I'm used to people thinking through issues, but then trying to make their position look stronger than it is by using arguments that don't really work, and if they're really honest, they know don't really work. That's certainly true on both sides in the women bishops debate; it's certainly true on both sides in the creation / evolution debate; it's certainly true on both sides when arguing about the existence of God. To be honest, it's part of the reason I quit taking sides in the 144-hour creation / 14 Gy creation debate (unless anyone is arguing their case more strongly than is tenable, in which case I sometimes try to argue them more into the centre).

That doesn't seem to happen anywhere near as much here though, especially among the staff. It's a real challenge for me as well - although I really don't like it when others do it, I know I still occasionally use arguments I know aren't solid. So I'm trying to stop doing that.

Here's a challenge for readers of this blog. You try doing the same. Try being honest with yourselves and with other people about when your position is solid and when it's not, about when arguments work and when they don't really work but you like the conclusion anyway.

One of the people who posts comments on this blog gave me a really funny example of this with a modified version of the old (and hideously flawed) so-called Argument from Evil, which he described as an "irrefutable disproof of God". I'll assume he was being humourous and self-deprecating by deliberately hugely overstating his case with a very poor argument. But if he'd been doing that seriously (which I'll assume he wasn't), and if I was observing, I'd think that he was desperate for arguments for his position if that was the best he could come up with.

Growing Up

Here's a wonderful rant from the Telegraph that I somehow missed last week. Here are some highlights:

The plain fact is that you are being treated like a baby. You, I, all of us are on the receiving end of a sustained campaign to infantilise us: our tastes, our responses, our behaviour, our private thoughts, our decisions, our buying habits, our philosophies, our political sensibilities.

My grandfather was born in 1888 and he didn't have a lifestyle. He didn't need one: he had a life.

I suspect that my grandfather's life was real in a sense that my father's life hasn't quite been, and my life is not at all.

We live on a diet of shadows, and we can only imitate them, stuck in the playpen, waiting to be distracted.

Mistrust anything catchy, whether it's the Axis of Evil, advertising slogans, or blatant branding ('New Labour'). Catchiness exists to prevent thought and to disguise motive. Grown-ups can think for themselves.

Watch our language. Is there really much difference between a six-year-old in a fright-wig and his father's waders shouting 'I'm the Mighty Wurgle-Burgle-Urgley-Goo' and an ostensible grown-up demanding to be called 'Tony Blair's Respect Tsar'?

Many thanks to Dr Albert Mohler, who seems to be very good at spotting these things in the UK press, despite being 1) very busy and 2) American.

It's also worth pointing out that the rant is actually trying to sell the book Big Babies by Michael Bywater, from which it was taken.

Conspiracy Theories

Here's a nice one for conspiracy theory enthusiasts:

The Moon Does Not Exist (apparently...)

God and Canaanite Religion

A long time ago I read a controversial book (well, I've read quite a few of them) called Eternity in their Hearts by Don Richardson. The book had three big ideas in, which all seemed very controversial in different ways, but all of which were well argued. Richardson's ideas were:

• God was often to be found in pagan religions as the god underlying their pantheons
• Before the time of Jesus, followers of some religions, if they truly sought after God (as present in their religion) could therefore be saved in much the same way that Melchizedek (for example) was saved
• God has placed things in pagan religions to point people to Jesus

To be honest, I quite liked all three ideas, but officially suspended judgement on their truth until I had more knowledge of the topics. Now seems to be that time, at least for the first idea.

The Bible tells us (Exodus 6:3) that God did not reveal himself by the name "Yahweh" until Moses, but he revealed himself by the name "El" (or its various compounds, especially "El Shaddai") to Abraham and his descendants. But Genesis was obviously compiled by someone after that, so the name Yahweh does get used a fair bit. There's plenty of evidence though that the original stories in Genesis were from before 1500BC though, even though the final compilation might not have been until 1000BC or later.

However, "El" was not just a name plucked out of nowhere. At the time of Abraham, El was the chief god in the Canaanite pantheon. Abraham, having grown up in Mesopotamia, would have been familiar with him by the name "Il", which is the Mesopotamian version. So when God revealed himself to Abraham as "El", Abe would have thought it was the top god in the local pantheon speaking to him.

We get more evidence of this in Genesis 14. Abraham meets a guy called Melchizedek who is priest of El Elyon (which was at the time a kind of title for El), and they clearly recognise that they worship the same god.

It does look very much as if Abraham is a monolatrist (worshipping only one god, even if he recognises that others might exist). Certainly, later on, the worship of other gods from the Canaanite pantheon, particularly Asherah (thought to be El's consort) and Ba'al (El's son, who later became the dominant god in Canaanite worship) was pretty heavily opposed.

So what was God doing revealing himself as a god within the Canaanite pantheon? Well, Richardson's thoughts were that since the Bible tells us we are all descended from people who did worship God (like Noah), that the memory of worshipping God would have been carried down through cultures, even though they might later pick up other gods round the edges (and in later Canaanite religion, these later gods like Ba'al eventually displaced the original El).

The idea is certainly also implicit within the way that the Bible gets translated into other langauges, particularly the word "God". Translators tend to look into the historical religion or mythology of an area, and they almost always find that there is one original god, who is seen as being uncreated and who made all the other gods and stuff, even if he's now only a footnote. And that's usually what they pick to translate "God" as.

Reading Week

This is officially my college half term and reading week.

I'm doing a university course, not a college one. Reading week therefore means for me:

• fewer friends around, coz they've gone away
• less support in terms of college services and so on
• slight frustration beforehand with quite a few people saying "what are you doing on the holiday next week?"
• just the same amount of work
• realising I'd much rather do it this way because I'm finding it hard enough to keep going now - with a week off I'd have an adrenaline crash and it would take too long to get back up to speed
• less time wasted in silly meetings
• God is still good :o)

Approaches to Old Testament History

For those interested in more academic theology, I've put a few thoughts on my other blog about different people's approaches to Old Testament history.

Approaches to Old Testament History

I've been spending much of this term so far studying Old Testament history. And one of the interesting things has been the range of different approaches people take to it. Here's a quick guide from three weeks of studying it...

The Fundamentalist Approach

The first approach, which I'll label "fundamentalist" is to say that the historical sections of the Old Testament (Genesis - Esther or Job, + bits in the prophets) are intended, at least in part, to communicate history accurately and that they do so truthfully. There are loads of people who think like this out there in the world, but their main function in academia seems to be being used as a stereotype so other people can dismiss what the Bible says.

An example of this would be saying that Israel conquered the Promised Land by invading with a huge army, killing all the inhabitants fairly quickly, destroying all their cities and settling down and living there, and we'd expect archaeology to back that up. If that isn't what the archaeologists say, then they've obviously got it wrong.

There have been a few academics like this, but I don't know any current ones who teach Old Testament.

The Evangelical Approach

Another approach is to say that the Bible is true, but in a more nuanced sense. So the Old Testament narrative books do provide true descriptions of what actually happened, but that isn't necessarily their main agenda. They are very selective, often one-sided, often polemical.

Archaeology can then help us understand some details of what happened, how the writers were being selective, and hence help us to see the point they were making with the details they included. If there are discrepancies between archaeology and what the Bible says, they might be due to us getting bits of archaeology wrong, or they might be due to us getting our understanding of the Bible wrong, and we'd need to do work at both to see what actually happened.

This is pretty much my point of view, and there are some academics like this as well, but not that many...

The "Believing Academic" Approach

A more common approach among academics seems to be the idea that archaeology, etc is our primary source of knowledge about the events in the Old Testament. The Bible may have some factual errors, or may be changing details to make a point. Some books might be fictionalised retellings of what actually happened.

On the other hand, this approach can still be held by Christians, and often is within Old Testament studies. Some might say, for example, that the story in the book of Joshua is a story told by the Israelites about how they came to be in the Promised Land, though actually the reality was different - a few people who might well have left Egypt and one of whom might have been called Joshua, entered the land, bringing the religion of Yahwism and sparked some kind of revolt, which then led to at least a hundred years of fighting between small groups of revolters and the established order.

My reaction, though, is that this approach comes from being (epistemologically at least) an academic first and a Christian second - running Christianity as software within an academic operating system, so that the academia undergirds, permeates and changes the Christianity. That might be completely wrong and unfair, but it's how I read the situation.

The "Neutral Academic" Approach

Another common viewpoint seems to be that of the "neutral academic" (but no-one is really neutral). They'd tend to say that while the historical interpretations of the evangelical are possible, the more likely interpretation is that given by archaeology or by attempting to take the Bible texts apart in various different ways. In practice, their reconstructions of history are often pretty similar to the "believing academic" ones, except that "neutral" academics often completely discount the possibility of miracles, which isn't very neutral at all.

What they are "neutral" on, however, is the importance of the Biblical text. Sometimes they'll say it's useful, sometimes they won't or will say it reflects reality at the time of writing, which they'll put at 700 years after the event, usually because they've rejected miracles and predicting the future or something. Some might say that the Bible is roughly as useful for talking about history as the film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

I can see where people with this sort of view are coming from - they are trying to investigate the history of ancient Israel the same way as they'd go about investigating any other history. The big problem is that Israel is pretty much unique in the world in having a written account which has been passed down as Scripture through a community (rather than through being buried in the ground or through libraries of people who thought it was an interesting but largely irrelevant document) for at least 2500 years (and bits of it 3500 years). And it's really difficult to know therefore how reliable it is as history. Well, they're happy that it's fairly reliable back to about 1000BC, but from there back to Abraham (sometime 2000-1500BC) is more difficult to gauge.

The main reason I think it's reliable before that is that Jesus is God, so he's in a position to know, and he treated it like it was pretty reliable. But if other people don't agree that Jesus was God, I don't see why they should treat it as reliable.

The "Liberal Academic" Approach

This approach seems to have as one of its prior assumptions that what the Bible seems to say is inaccurate in almost every possible respect. They then try constructing an alternative scenario which bears as little resemblence as possible to the Biblical one, but which tries to explain how the Bible came to say what it did. Sometimes they do this on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.

For example, the classic "liberal academic" approach to the question of what Abraham believed is that he must have been a polytheist (or a tribe of polytheists) who worshipped a whole load of gods (using all the different things God is called in Genesis as the names for these gods). They'd also say that "the God of Abraham", "the God of Isaac" and "the God of Jacob" are three different gods, and that the authors / editors of Genesis (over 1000 years later) messed about with it to combine all these different gods to make them look like one god, but somehow keeping all the different names.

In many cases, the conclusions of the liberal academic arguments have since been shown to be complete rubbish, or at least not to fit with any of the archaeological evidence either. To me that would indicate that their approach is flawed, but a lot of their arguments are still thought of as the "orthodox" approach in academia.

The Dangers of Labels

It is of course a very dangerous thing to label people - I've tried only to label points of view here, and that because I think it's worth distinguishing them. In reality, people are probably much more nuanced than I've presented them.

So What?

Whether someone takes the first or second (or indeed third) approach to history might not make much difference to the way that they preach a passage or on the significance of the passage for the hearers. (Yes, there are clearly some examples where it would make a big difference).

But I think in a way the biggest difference is over the confidence that we can have in the Bible. If people are going into studying theology (or reading quite a bi of theology stuff) believing the "fundamentalist" approach, and not aware of the "evangelical" approach (and there are plenty of people like that) then their reaction to some of the stuff they come across will either be to reject it outright (which is bad) or to lose confidence in the truth of the Bible (which is disasterous). I, for one, am very grateful that people explained to me stuff like non-linear storytelling before I arrived.

Dawkins Again

Here's a very interesting video clip with Richard Dawkins being "interviewed" on American TV. So many questions spring to mind...

• What kind of dumb programme is that? The host seemed to spend more time high-fiving members of the audience than he did interviewing Dawkins. He (the host, not Dawkins) also appears to be a few cans short of a six-pack.
• What on earth is Dawkins doing appearing on a programme like that, especially when he refuses to debate McGrath? Is he trying to reinforce his stereotypes of Christians as stupid or something? (possibly he's trying to appear intelligent)
• What does it say about the quality of both people when they just stoop to insulting one another?
• I note the programme was on Comedy Central. Were any bits of that funny? (I honestly can't see the humour there...)
• Why does Dawkins say it's not due to random chance? "Darwinian natural selection is the exact opposite of random chance." Ummmm... I thought the mutation had to be random...
• "Nothing in nature looks random" - really, even nuclear decay?
• I'm not sure about the natural / artifical distinction Dawkins makes.
• "That's just so easy. If God is outside time, you can explain anything." Well, quite. What's wrong with being easy?

The God Delusion? - Alister McGrath

These are my notes on Rev Prof McGrath's talk on Richard Dawkins' latest book. Any mistakes are mine, but I will often refer to my perception of McGrath's views without clarifying that that is what they are. I'll try to make it clear where stuff is my own thought, and think it worth noting that I don't agree 100% with what I think McGrath said - it's more like 95%. Much of what he said was of course recapping his earlier work in this book.

Introduction

McGrath noted that Dawkins had, over time, become incresingly atheistic in his writings, and that at the same time, he had become decreasingly scientific. So at the start of his writing career, he wrote the brilliant The Selfish Gene, but his latest offer The God Delusion is not up to his usual standard. McGrath even said later that he did not think that Dawkins' new book read as if it was written by a scientist, as it tended to rubbish opponents rather than using evidence.

McGrath then pointed out that although Dawkins claims that science "has disproved religion", this is an exceptionally ambitious claim since there is not a generally agreed definition of "religion". McGrath then spent most of the time addressing Dawkins' arguments against God, centred around his claim that science had made religion redundant.

Who Created the Creator?

Dawkins argues that invoking a creator simply leads to infinite regress - who created the creator, who created her, etc?

McGrath countered by pointing out that the holy grail for science is a Grand Unified Theory, which would itself explain everything yet must necessarily remain unexplained. It is therefore universally accepted that an irreducible is necessary, so Dawkins' argument fails.

Real Scientists Don't Believe in God

So how come so many scientists disagree? Surveys show a stable proportion of 40% theistic, 20% agnostic, 40% atheistic for career scientists.

McGrath also cited Steve Jay Gould's claim that science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God - that nature itself does not impose either a Christian or an atheist framework on our interpretation of the data.

Faith is Belief in Spite of the Evidence

McGrath countered this firstly by observing that many of Dawkins' own assertions about religion were beliefs without evidence. He then went on to speak about his own conversion - how he had become a Christian, from being a militant atheist, largely because of evidence and reason. Furthermore, he cited C.S. Lewis and John Polkinghorne, among others, who used reason as evidence for Christianity. He quoted Lewis - "I believe in Christianity as I believe the Sun has risen, not just because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

McGrath then pointed out that atheism itself is faith. Science does not prove or disprove God, so anything except agnosticism requires going beyond the scientific evidence.

A belief in God is the result of a virus of the mind

McGrath noted that it was a particularly vivid image, especially in terms of values. He also noted that Dawkins is making less use of it than he used to, but that Dawkins needs a reason for people believing in God.

He then addressed it by pointing out that we can see and examine real viruses. Further, Dawkins claims that irrational ideas count as viruses of the mind, but not rational ones. However, that is ultimately a subjective distinction!

On questioning, McGrath clarified his comment about viruses of the mind not being visible in terms of needing to examine whether or not it was a valid description of the spread of ideas - it is not clearly "something" in the way that a physical virus is.

Memes - believing because it is effective

McGrath pointed out that the gene / meme analogy is very tenuous and is now generally rejected in science and cultural anthropology, principally because the development of ideas seems to be far more Lamarckian than Darwinian (i.e. with intent). On the other hand, Dawkins remains committed to cultural Darwinism, and treats the idea as if everyone accepts it to be true. With genes, there is no other way of explaining the evidence. With memes, there are other ways that work much better.

Since there is no God, there has to be a natural explanation

McGrath considered Dawkins' claim that we are psychologically predisposed to believe in God, an idea which goes back at least to Feuerbach's argument that God was invented as a projection of our desire.

First he pointed out that traditional Christian doctrine also says that people are predisposed to believe in God. Using the analogy of a glass of water, McGrath pointed out that just because we want something, doesn't mean it is there, but neither does it mean that it isn't there.

He then highlighted how the desire for autonomy in the 18th century was a key factor in the development of modern atheism, and hence that the argument cuts equally both ways.

He also pointed out how frequently Dawkins uses "might" and "maybe" when discussing this area - highlighting that it is conjectural. In the questions afterwards, McGrath did discuss briefly some of the issues in neurology and so on, concluding that the issue would probably need to be revisited by both sides in 20 years' time.

Religion Causes Violence - 9/11, 7/7, etc. To get rid of violence, we need to get rid of religion

There is a narrow line between getting rid of religion, and getting rid of religious people....

McGrath pointed to the work of Paik on suicide bombing, showing that religion is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for suicide bombers, but that there seeemed to be a very strong correlation with people groups who felt oppressed and that there was no other way of changing society.

He also agreed that sometimes violence is caused by religion, but pointed to the Amish reaction to the recent shootings as an example showing that it was not typical. He mentioned in passing Dawkins' dismissal of the Amish... He then went on to point out that violence arises from anything that people regard as important and gave the example of the transcendentalisation of human values at the time of the French Revolution. He also asked the simple question as to which issue would be most likely to cause a violent riot in Oxford today, with the answer of Animal Rights. It therefore seems to be an aspect of human nature that is the underlying cause of violence, rather than religion per se.

McGrath also pointed to institutional atheism's somewhat spectacular record when it comes to violence, which Dawkins dismisses offhand. He gave the particular example of Stalin...

Religion leads to gross impoverishment - delusion, danger to society, etc

Here, McGrath accused Dawkins of cognitive bias - that he airbrushes out all the good bits of religion and the bad bits of atheism, and reiterated the point that Dawkins was now less effective as an apologist for atheism than he was 10 years ago. The term "atheist fundamentalist" was used quite a few times, and it was pointed out that Dawkins now seemed to be being disavowed even by intelligent atheists.

Other questions

A variety of questions were asked afterwards (this was a meeting for postgrads at Oxford). They included:

Asking about whether Dawkins had read the Bible. McGrath wasn't sure but cited some examples which suggested a near complete lack of knowledge or comprehension - "Paul's Letter to the Hebrews", and not being aware of the parable of the Good Samaritan or the importance to Christian ethics of loving enemies.

Another questioner highlighted Dawkins' use of sources - specifically quoting Luther hugely out of context with quotes that appeared to be copied and pasted from the web.

McGrath was also asked about why there was no evidence for the existence of God cited in Dawkins' God. His response was that that was not the aim of the book, his aim being solely to critique Richard Dawkins' view of God. Actually, that was one of the things that really made me think that McGrath was far more concerned about the truth than about being right. Most Christians would have taken the opportunity to talk about God - McGrath seemed content merely to discuss Dawkins' views.

He was then asked why he believed in God, and he replied that it wasn't because of science, and he did not think there were any knockdown arguments for the existence of God. Instead, he said that it was because Christianity seemed to make more sense of the universe than atheism, that it was real in that it had the capacity to transform, specifically to give reasons for living and hope, as well as the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

He was also asked about his views on creation / evolution. He replied that he saw Darwinian evolution as plausible, but not necessarily true. The key point, according to McGrath, was that atheism is not built into Darwinianism - it works equally well using a doctrine of divine providence instead.