Becoming Creation » Meetings

Accommodating Accommodation

Douglas — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:44:10 +0000

I’m down with the flu today (it’s Labor Day as I begin to write this post), so I wasn’t able to do any yard work like I intended. Instead, I listened to three more ASA meeting talks from a session that I did not actually attend. I regret that I never got around to introducing myself to Carol Hill; I’ve enjoyed several of her articles in PSCF, especially Making Sense of the Numbers of Genesis (see also follow-up letters one and two). I did meet Paul Seely at the meeting, and already knew Denis Lamoureux (see previous post).

Anyway, this was an very interesting session because all three talks represent the Evolutionary Creationist (EC) perspective (i.e., full acceptance of evidence for cosmological, geological and biological evolution including humans), and all three presenters recognize that the only reasonable way to make sense of the Genesis texts is to accept that the Ancients really had a different understanding of the structure and operation of the physical world. In other words, all three accept the principle of accommodation (vs. concordism) as the proper method for interpreting Scripture; yet each one takes this view in a slightly different direction.

Here are the audio links and my comments (or see menu page for all conference talks):

Paul H. Seely, “Does the Bible Use Phenomenal Language?” (no Slides).

The audio isn’t that good; there’s a lot of popping throughout, especially near the beginning.

Seely shows how Calvin and others reconciled Scripture with science by appealing to phenomenal (also called phenomenological) language, i.e., the notion that Scripture “concords” with science because it was written as the way things appear (sun rises, etc.) and did not claim that those appearances are real. Seely asserts that this method of reconciling Scripture and science is not valid because the ancient writers really did think that the appearances were accurate descriptions of the world.

You might suppose that he [Charles Hodge] meant an accommodation to the scientific beliefs of the times. But a close look at Hodge’s work indicates that he was say that the solid sky mentioned in Genesis was an accommodation to the sky’s appearance. The interesting thing about Hodge’s idea that the solid firmament in Genesis 1 is phenomenal language is that it violates Hodge’s own first rule of interpretation – namely, that words mean what they meant to the people of that time. [But] people in the time of the OT believed the sky was really solid. When they spoke of the solid sky, they meant it literally.

Does the bible EVER use phenomenal language? I do not think so. The reason people in bible times thought of the sky as solid and the sun as literally moving, is because the sky looks solid (especially at night) and the sun looks like it is literally moving. They accepted the appearance as the reality.

We can use phenomenal language today with respect to the sky’s appearance and the sun’s apparent motion because we know in fact that the reality is not as it appears. They ancients did not have this privilege with respect to these matters.

Carol A. Hill, “The Worldview Approach to Biblical Interpretation and Origins: What It Is and How It Differs from Accommodation” (Slides).

Her slides are really very good. If you favor a method that preserves a historical Adam, this one’s for you. I’m not entirely convinced about that myself, but am giving her perspective much more serious consideration than I had in the past (somehow I had missed this point when I read her papers on the subject). Her objections to the full-blown version of accommodation may be more a matter of semantics (what you understand the word “accommodation” to actually mean with respect to process of inspiration.

Nevertheless, her presentation helps to emphasize that God’s revelation is based as much (if not primarily) on his incarnation and interaction with humankind as events in history as it is on his delivering an accommodated (i.e., “dumbed-down”) message to the writers of Scripture. Hill’s main point is that the interaction is experienced by us as real events; then, in documenting our experiences with God, we are the ones who accommodate the events to our current understanding. I think that’s correct; I’m just not sure it follows that Adam must have been an actual person.

Denis O. Lamoureux, “The Sin-Death Problem: Toward an Evolutionary Creationist Solution” (Slides).

Apparently there were problems with the projector at the beginning, so it takes a couple of minutes to get going. Also the original deck of slides on the ASA site is not complete (only the first screen of each multi-part slide got distilled to the PDF). I made a new PDF from Denis’s original slides, so that’s why my ‘Slides’ link doesn’t go to the ASA site.

Lamoureux’s talk is not a complete argument; you’ll have to read one of his books or articles for that. This talk is just a quick “answer” to those who wonder how he can take such an unconventional view (no Adam or Fall) while still holding to a very conventional theology of the Gospel. You can also see my interview with him.

As it relates to accommodation, Lamoureux was dealing with Romans 5 and 8, which are the key sticking points for people (including Carol Hill) concerned with preserving a historical Adam. Denis wants us to recognize that, just like the ancient writers of Genesis and the OT, the apostle Paul and NT writers had no choice but to accommodate their experiences and divine-inspired doctrinal insights to their worldview. They had to give their testimony and explain their beliefs using their conceptual understanding of what is real about both the structure and function of the cosmos and the story of God’s people (history). Paul wrote about Adam as a real person because he certainly believed that Adam was a historical person. Denis’ point is that we are not compelled to do likewise; the Message-Incident Principle allows us to preserve a high view of inerrancy without requiring us to conform to Paul’s incidental context.

As Paul Seely said in his talk, Scripture is “inerrant for the purpose for which it was written.”

ou might suppose that he [Charles Hodge] meant an accommodation to the scientific beliefs of the

times.But a close look at Hodge’s work indicates that he was say that the solid sky mentioned in

Genesis was an accommodation to the sky’s APPEARANCE. The interesting thing about Hodge’s idea that

the solid firmament in Genesis 1 is phenomenal language is that it violates Hodge’s own first rule of

interpretation – namely, that words mean what they meant to the people of THAT time. [But] people in

the time of the OT believed the sky was REALLY solid. When they spoke of the solid sky, they meant it

literally.

Does the bible EVER use phenomenal language? I do not think so. The reason people in bible times

thought of the sky as solid and the sun as literally moving, is because the sky looks solid

(especially at night) and the sun looks like it is literally moving. They accepted the APPEARANCE as

the REALITY.

We can use phenomenal language today with respect to the sky’s appearance and the sun’s apparent

motion because we know in fact that the reality is not as it appears. They ancients did not have this

privelege with respect to these matters.

Volleyball with Astronauts

Douglas — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:57:14 +0000

Before I add more posts recalling and reviewing sessions I attended at the 2009 ASA annual meeting, I wanted to highlight the other equally valuable aspect of attending: Fellowship.

Of course the weekend included scheduled times of fellowship, such as the Friday mixer after the opening plenary session and the Saturday Texas barbecue dinner and line dancing. After all, the meeting was at Baylor University in Waco. (Two years earlier in Edinburgh, Scotland the dance was a ceilidh. I wonder what sort of dance it will be next year in Washington D.C.)

At any one of these activities, you might find yourself in a conversation circle, in a dancing line or at a dinner table with some contemporary hero of science like Jennifer Wiseman (on Wikipedia), chief astrophysicist of Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics at Goddard Space Flight Center. (On Friday night she and David Leckrone shared about the recent Shuttle mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.)

I had already met up with Denis Lamoureux on Thursday night at the Dallas Airport, where we waited for the same flight into Waco. He introduced me to Bethany Sollereder and Leslie Wickman (LinkedIn), who were also on the flight. Walter Bradley and Bill Jordan met us at the airport and brought us over to Baylor.

At the Friday workshop (“Teaching about Science and Christianity” – more on that in a subsequent post), I sat by Jennifer Billman from Messiah College, Heather Prior from King’s University, and Bernie Dehler. It was a pleasure to meet them and learn about their work and interests.

Meal times in the cafeteria were great, and I don’t mean because of the food (I get much better at home and didn’t have much of an appetite for “industrial food” after having recently read The Omnivore’s Dilemma). It’s the fellowship and conversation that’s important. I can’t exactly remember all the people I shared a meal with, but it included (in no particular order) Anita and Paul Seely, Ralph Davis, Craig Rusbult, Sean Cordry, Steve Badger, Daniel Harlow, Margaret Towne and Bryan Isaac.

On Saturday I had a “private” lunch-time meeting with Loren and Deb Haarsma (Calvin College), author’s of the wonderful book Origins, to discuss my ideas and plans for the ASA homeschool resources website. In fact, I connected with several people about the homeschool resources project. I had a conversation with Bob Fay and soon learned that he is a chemist at Cornell University as well as the author of a popular college Chemistry textbook!

I was glad to meet Dennis Venema (LinkedIn) from Trinity Western University, who I had interacted with a little on the ASA email discussion list. He gave a nice talk on the genetics of human origins. Despite the fact that evolution is always a hot topic at ASA meetings, there doesn’t seem to be very many biologists in the group who know their evolutionary genetics (David Campbell is the other). If I had stayed in academia, I would have liked to contribute talks of this sort.

So, what’s this got to do with volleyball and astronauts? Well, it turns out that Leslie Wickman from Azusa Pacific University and Dominic Halsmer from Oral Roberts University, both serious athletes, were itching to play some beach volleyball on the court in the commons area. They were struggling to find two other able-bodied players among the 200 academics at the meeting. Somehow, they thought I might qualify and asked me. So, on Sunday evening we skipped one session to play some frisbee (I held my own there) and volleyball. I was teamed up with Leslie against Bernie Dehler and Dominic. It was a very even match, with Bernie and I barely filling our places alongside our professional partners. I was exhausted, but I really enjoyed learning a little bit about the strategy and techniques required for two-on-two play. In case you don’t follow the links to their bios, let me tell you that Dominic is really a ranking athlete, and Leslie is a former astronaut, professional football player and beach volleyball player!

Thanks to everyone at the conference for the privilege of meeting and getting to know you better. I hope to see you again soon.

Doug

Adam and The Shack

Douglas — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:19:39 +0000

From The Shack (page 135-136) by Wm. Paul Young:

“You were talking earlier about humans declaring good and evil without knowledge?” Mack asked, shaking another root free from its dirt.
“Yes. I was specifically talking about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
“The tree of the knowledge of good and evil?” asked Mack.
“Exactly!” she stated, seeming to almost expand and contract for emphasis while she worked. “And now, Mackenzie, you are beginning to see why eating the deadly fruit of that tree was so devastating to your race.”
“I’ve never given it much thought, really,” said Mack, intrigued by the direction their chat was taking. “So was there really an actual garden? I mean, Eden and all that?”
“Of course. I told you I have a thing for gardens.”
“That’s going to bother some people. There are lots of people who think it was only a myth.”
“Well, their mistake isn’t fatal. Rumors of glory are often hidden inside what many consider myths and tales.”

This is the first of several posts that I plan to write about sessions I attended at the ASA annual meeting last month at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Don’t expect any deep analysis. I just want to “systematically” review my notes and session abstracts to recall some of what I learned and thought about at the meeting.

Adam in The Shack

Image from Amazon

I happened to be reading The Shack over that same weekend. So, besides the fact that I’m always thinking the nature and meaning of creation, I was particularly attentive to comparing Paul Young’s personal and allegorical perspective on the problem of evil and science’s implications on theodicy and origins issues.

The Shack is actually a very good book, and I have even greater respect for it after watching a DVD of Paul Young speaking at my parents’ church. Sure, if you took individual parts of it (even the quotation above) and attempted to to “literalize”, there would certainly be things to take issue with. But that is definitely not the author’s purpose. There are no easy answers to the problem of evil. All we can do is believe in the goodness and faithfulness of God, and that’s ultimately the point of the book.

I liked the quotation because the author effectively kicks away the crutches supporting the common misconception that the literal reality of the garden story is essential to maintaining a proper view of good and evil and the origin of sin. He comes down on the side of a literal garden, but he recognizes that it really doesn’t matter so long as the proper attitude and posture toward God is adopted by the believer.

Adam at the ASA meeting

So, what does this have to do with the ASA meeting? Well, one session on Sunday afternoon focused on the question of the theological necessity of the historicity of Adam and the garden events. Here are audio links and abstract-snippets for the three talks (menu page for all conference talks):

C. John Collins, “Were Adam and Eve Historical Figures? Yes, Indeed!”
The best way to account for the biblical presentation of human life is to suppose that Adam and Eve were real persons, and the ancestors of all other human beings. The biblical presentation concerns, not simply the story in Genesis and the biblical passages that refer to it, but also the larger biblical storyline, which deals with God’s good creation invaded by sin, for which God has a redemptive plan; of Israel’s calling to be a light to the nations; and of the church’s prospect of successfully bringing God’s light to the whole world.

Daniel Harlow, “Adam and Eve as Symbolic Figures in Biblical Literature”
This paper explains why most biblical scholars regard Adam and Eve as purely symbolic figures, and why they do not find the Christian doctrines of the fall and original sin in the text of Genesis 2–3 but in later interpretations of Genesis. The paper discusses the literary genre of Genesis 1–11, the adaptation of ancient Near Eastern myths in Genesis 2–3, the presence of two creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2, and specific narrative indicators in the text of Genesis 2–3 which support a symbolic reading of these chapters.

John Schneider, “Genetic Science and Christianity’s Story of Human Origins: An Aesthetic ‘Supra-Lapsarianism’”
The most recent genetic science seems to discredit Christianity’s story of human origins at points that are essential to Christian teaching as a whole. Christian thinkers who have begun recasting the Christian story have done so mainly in the light of science. In this paper, the author proposes that Scripture can be used for very similar purposes. The main thesis is that the Book of Job corrects and deepens the simpler Deuteronomic understanding of Genesis 1–3.

Adam in my Thoughts

Honestly, I just can’t pretend to entertain in my own mind any possibility that Genesis 1-3 could be factual in any literal sense. As Dennis Venema explained in his talk, “Human Genomics: Vestiges of Eden or Skeletons in the Closet?” (Slides), the scientific data render it increasingly implausible to maintain that two individuals were the first humans and the biological ancestors of all other human beings.

And for some time now, it’s been clear to me that the creation and garden stories do not really explain the origin of evil and sin in the first place. Thus, there doesn’t seem to be any particular value in regarding them as factual just to preserve an orthodox view. This is not to say that the non-literal view really solves the theodicy problem any better. It doesn’t really. But at least there doesn’t have to be cognitive dissonance with what I know about the created order through science. And I don’t have to try to pretend that the highly stylized tale (paradise-garden, talking snake, etc.) is literally true. Genesis 1-11 has much greater depth and power of meaning (as well as no conflict with the record of evolutionary history) if it is read as ancient-near east (ANE) storytelling in the context of God’s covenant people.

When all’s said and done, though, I can concur with Paul Young. In my version of the book, I’d end the passage as follows:

“That’s going to bother some people. There are lots of people who think it had to be a real place.”
“Well, their mistake isn’t fatal. Good theology and true faith are often built on what many incorrectly assume to be factual.”