Review of Nancy Pearcey’s Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning

 Saving Leonardo is an extremely well written, heavily documented and illustrated exploration of how the dominant Christian, Western worldview of the Middle Ages evolved into contemporary Postmodernism. Pearcey’s thesis is that worldview drives culture and the artistic expressions of culture.

One of the foundational concepts of the book is the historical splintering of the concept of truth. The Western worldview for centuries viewed truth as unified; in other words, the material truths of the natural world pointed to equally certain spiritual truths. The design of nature revealed the moral intent of the Creator. The book of nature and the book of Scripture pointed to the same unified truths. But the Enlightenment began splitting the concept of truth: empirical, material facts versus religious/moral opinions and values. Facts are certain and objective; religious/moral values are subjective and therefore relative.

Pearcey demonstrates the beginning, widening, and final bifurcation of the fact/value split with numerous quotations from the preeminent philosophers of each age (Enlightenment, Romanticism, Modernism, Postmodernism). She then illustrates how the shifting worldviews were represented in art, providing examples of architecture, paintings, musical compositions, etc., and quotations from both the artists themselves and art critics.

In a word, Saving Leonardo is a virtual instruction manual for identifying the links between the spirit of the age, art (in all its forms) and the artist’s worldview. The book is heavily documented, which will be useful for researchers wishing for further exploration. Nancy Pearcey is one of the premier modern writers on the the philosophical concepts truth, worldview, and how they intersect with and drive culture. I’ve read Total Truth and Finding Truth and now Saving Leonardo, and found them all fascinating and instructive.

Note to the reader: if you are not already familiar with philosophical systems (materialism, existentialism, positivism, and a host of others), something that will greatly help as you read Saving Leonardo is to make a brief list of the various philosophical systems and their meanings when she initially defines them, because she will be referring back to them frequently throughout the book. There are so many it is easy to forget the salient points of each.

Saving Leonardo reminds me of Francis Schaeffer’s How ShouldWe Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture. Pearcey has been greatly influenced by Schaeffer’s thought, but she does a good job of moving the ball forward (I recommend both books highly).

Five stars—highly recommended.

What's happened to American academics?

One would like to think that advanced educational attainment is not a dominant factor in causing people to lose all common sense, but after this week I am beginning to wonder.

I found myself having a cordial but firm disagreement with a young lady who possesses a Masters and Bachelors in History and who teaches history in a local community college. She was admonishing a young college student who is in my church regarding Islam. She made the claim that “Muslims are not violent. ISIS is not Muslim if you study their history. ISIS is to Islam in the same manner the KKK is to Christianity. Can't label billions for the actions of a few.”

Certainly I agree with her that you can’t label the billions for the actions of a few. But I am astounded that a woman who teaches history would have such an unhistorical knowledge of the background of Islam. A native of Mecca, Muhammad’s new religion was not accepted—at first—by the other tribes around him. They were polytheists and he was selling monotheism. He fled from Mecca to Medina, where he had greater success in building a following. Mecca itself later converted under the threat of the sword in the early seventh century. The rapid expansion of Islam in the entire Mediterranean region occurred primarily by military conquest, or the threat thereof. Islamic violence is not breaking news, it is a deep-rooted part of their history and finds vigorous theological support in the Quran. ISIS is perhaps the most faithful representation of Islamic roots that we have seen in the modern day.

She is correct that most Muslims today do not pursue violent jihad. Some have reinterpreted the Quran to view jihad as a personal spiritual battle in their pursuit of personal Islamic purity. But it will be unhelpful from both a national policy and personal relational standpoint to revise the history of Islam. Relationships built upon falsehoods are inherently unstable and unsustainable.

The second moment of dismay with academics this week also had to do with Islam. According to an article by Jessica Chasmar appearing in the Washington Times(12/16/2015), a “Christian” tenured Wheaton College faculty member said this:

“I love my Muslim neighbor because s/he deserves love by virtue of her/his human dignity. I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.”

I agree with her that we need to love our neighbor, including and especially our Muslim neighbors at a time like this. And I can grant her the stated reason of “human dignity,” though I would frame it a different way: we should love our neighbor because Christ commands us to and because all humans bear the image of God.

But her other reasons are simply incoherent. By definition a Christian is one who places their faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for their sins. Muslims don’t believe that Jesus died on the cross, period. Which sort of puts a kibosh on the resurrection, too, you know? In other words, they deny the central doctrine of the Christian faith. Soooo, in what way exactly can she stand in “religious solidarity” with them?

Secondly, they are indeed people of the book. But it’s the wrong book. This is not trivial sectarianism. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING we know about God and redemptive history comes from the Bible. You don’t lose part of it in the Quran—you lose all of it. Soooo, how can this “Christian” professor make such a claim, tell me again?

Third, I am to understand that we worship the same God? Really? In fact, there is no resemblance, neither superficial nor at greater depth. The true God, the Christian God, exists as one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That truth is abominable to the Muslim. Both Christians and Muslims claim that their God is merciful, so that might be a similarity—until you dig deeper, anyway. Then you find that the true God of the Bible is merciful because it is His nature to be merciful and He always acts in perfect accord with who He is. Allah is not so. Allah is pure will. Islam does not think in terms of the attributes of its deity, only in terms of his will. Allah is only merciful if he decides to be so, and he may decide not to be. There is simply no correlation to be made between the true God of the Bible and the god of Islam—unless one is entirely ignorant of one or the other—or of both.

I applaud this professor’s desire to love her neighbor and to avoid disenfranchising her Muslim friends, and I stand with her in that regard. But if you stop and think about her words for just a moment you’ll realize she has dishonored both Christian and Islamic belief by trying to forge a non-existent via media between two irreconcilable belief systems. I certainly can’t stand with her there.

America once had a great educational system. But the words of these two educators make me wonder, what’s happened to American academics? They are not getting even the most basic facts right.

Hey, brothers, they’re eating our lunch!

Sitting in my sun room, marveling over Romans 5. On the other side of the glass is our suet feeder, and a Red-bellied woodpecker is having a hissy fit. Seems that the sparrows have taken a liking to her suet cake and she’s not reconciled to the idea of sharing. Funny: I don’t recall giving that suet cake to her.

Anyway, she’s (I am informed by a bird identification site that my greedy little feathered friend is of the female variety) busy fending off the sparrows, clambering around the feeder daring any bird to come close.

Problem is, that suet feeder has two sides. So while she is guarding side A, the sparrows are pigging out on side B. They’re eating her lunch. Guess who’s not eating her lunch. She isn’t. She’s so distracted that she’s not getting a bite while the sparrows are having a feast (and a load of fun at her expense).

One would think from watching this little display of greed and turfism that birds have a sin nature. Well, Paul does say the whole creation groans . . . .

This reminds me of how easy it is to get distracted in our preaching, teaching, and study. Sometimes we preachers can get off-track by the garden variety heresies such as those promoted by modern lightweights like Joel Osteen and others. Or think of how many of us get distracted by themes such as satan and demons, spiritual warfare and bondage, varieties of eschatology, or other very legitimate but lesser topics. “Lesser than what?” you ask dubiously. Well, lesser than the Gospel, for instance. Lesser than our union with Christ and all the implications that flow from it. Lesser than the nature and attributes of God, whom to know aright is life eternal. We need to concentrate on keeping the main thing the main thing.

I’ve read that when banks teach tellers to spot counterfeit cash, they don’t spend a great deal of time studying the counterfeits. Rather, they spend a lot of time handling the real McCoy so that when a counterfeit passes through their hands they can spot it immediately because it feels wrong.

And that’s what we should be doing. Unless God has given you a polemic, apologetic ministry (and perhaps, in truth, He has), the best way to protect your flock from the wolves is to consistently, day-in-day-out, teach truth and as the occasion presents itself contrast the truth with error. When the text touches on demons, spiritual warfare, eschatology, etc, then so do we. But the bulk and the main of our ministry ought to be the systematic, expositional, verse-by-verse presentation of the Christ-centered, Gospel-centered Word of God.

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:1-4, NASB)

In 2 Timothy 4:1-4, Paul gives us a balanced view of asserting truth and confronting error. It's important to draw a distinction between confronting false teachers and instructing confused believers. It’s easy to be distracted and become unbalanced in our ministries and to spend too much time talking about false teachers and  their ministries. Paul does confront false teachers (for example, 2 Tim 2:16-17), and so should we. But a close reading of Paul shows him focusing on the teaching, reproving, and correcting of the sheep (see 2 Tim 2:23-26).

Nor am I suggesting that we pit expositional preaching/study against topical preaching/study—there’s a valuable place for both—but I am saying this: nothing will ground your flock so deeply as a consistent ministry of expositional preaching that enables them to keep texts in context with both the surrounding passages and the overall history of redemption.

It might take longer to see results with this sort of ministry, but in the long run you will spend less time putting out little doctrinal fires in your congregation because you’ve enabled them to connect the dots for themselves. Protect them from the wolves not by teaching them about wolves but by drawing their attention to the Shepherd.

Preach the Word, bathe them in truth, and the Spirit will give your flock discernment as needed. Otherwise the lightweights will be eating our lunch.

Now, what was I doing? Ah, yes, Romans 5. Guess I got distracted . . . .

More Tozer

The true Christian has a passion and love for truth, and feels not at all uncomfortable with the imperialistic, exclusive nature of truth. And yet if that passion for truth is not regulated by warm love for our neighbor, we are to the lost but frowning, bitter advocates of something the world finds to be foolish. Truth riding on the crest of love is appealing, but mired in the muck of pride it can be disgusting. In the nature of God these two great forces are never in tension: "Lovingkindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Ps. 85:10). Not so in man. If we are not trained by humility, we will attempt to wield truth as a battering ram with which we try to bludgeon our neighbors, our children, and our spouse into submission.

As Tozer focuses on the Holy Spirit in the last third of his book, The Pursuit of Man, he speaks about love and truth:

The blight of the Pharisee's heart in olden times was doctrine without love. With the teachings of the Pharisees Christ had little quarrel, but with the pharisaic spirit He carried on unceasing warfare to the end. It was religion that put Christ on the cross, religion without the indwelling Spirit. It is no use to deny that Christ was crucified by persons who today would be called fundamentalists. This should prove most disquieting if not downright distressing to us who pride ourselves on our orthodoxy. An unblessed soul filled with the letter of truth may actually be worse off than a pagan kneeling before a fetish. We are safe only when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, only when our intellects are indwelt by the loving Fire that came at Pentecost. For the Holy Spirit is not a luxury, not something added now and again to produce a deluxe type of Christian once in a generation. No, He is for every child of God a vital necessity, and that He fill and indwell His people is more than a languid hope. It is rather an inescapable imperative [A. W. Tozer, 106].

Nowhere is this human, fallen, and wholly unnecessary contradiction between love and truth seen so clearly as in our communications on the Internet. Our flame wars do little more than demonstrate how little the truth has changed us, and I am as guilty as the next. We are like the sons of thunder, who in the face of rejection asked Jesus, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:54). Jesus' response to James and John is one we still need to heed today: "But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them" (Luke 9:55-56, while there is a textual issue with His precise words, there is none with the fact of His rebuke).

May God invade us with His Holy Spirit, that our stand for truth would be unyielding but bathed in warm-hearted love and respect for those who do not yet know the Truth, Whom to know aright is life eternal.

Why study theology?

There is an important lesson waiting for us in Scripture, and it has to do with knowing God. The lesson is this: the true knowledge of God, when wholeheartedly embraced, is in itself sufficient to enable us to meet life's suffering and disappointments.

            We humans get this backwards. In our minds, what is necessary to meet the need of human suffering is human comfort. It certainly is important to care and express human sympathy, support, and compassion. And it is quite right and loving to do so. To do otherwise certainly would not express the love and kindness of God.

            But the Book of Job has something to contribute to this discussion of the sufficiency of the knowledge of God. Job suffered as few have. He lost his children, his wealth, and his health, all in a single day. His wife's helpful advice was, "Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9).

            Job had three outstanding friends who sought to comfort him, investing a huge amount of time with him, grieving silently with him for seven straight days and nights. Then they sought to help him by bringing some perspective to his suffering. It is easy to blame Job's friends, but you must admit that they had earned a hearing by their obvious care for him. But their attempts at comfort fell short. They blamed Job for sin he had not committed, and Job retreated into self-righteousness, ultimately intimating that God was unfair.

            But it was God who brought resolution and comfort to the situation. God sent a young man by the name of Elihu to set the stage by defending God's sovereign righteousness. God Himself then finally appeared and spoke to Job. What God said to Job is jarring to our perception of how a suffering person should be comforted. God essentially said, "Job! Look at me! Are you as great as I am? Can you do what I can do?"

            When God was finished, Job repented of his self-righteousness and became satisfied in his God. Did you get that? Job was comforted when he gazed on the greatness of his God!

            Think of the Letters to the Seven Churches in Revelation chapters two and three. Each of the churches was suffering some form of persecution. They each were facing certain dangers. But God opens each letter by describing Himself, and closes each by giving them a promise.

            What I am saying is this: we are so designed, so created, so wrought, that we find our greatest comfort, satisfaction and delight in knowing truly our God. At the end of the day, your proper knowledge of theology is comforting and sustaining. The Catholic Church has a name for this: they call it the Beatific Vision. The Beatific Vision is said to be the eternal and direct perception of God enjoyed by those who are in Heaven, imparting supreme happiness or blessedness [wikipedia]. What I am telling you is that we have the beatific vision now, in a sense, as we see our God through His Son and His Word. And it does indeed impart supreme happiness and blessedness as we glorify Him by knowing Him properly. Is there a better reason to study theology?

[This post comes from my introduction to Session 7 of our Advanced Theological Training course at BFC.]

Source of Authority #3: The Fallacy of Neutrality

Old Testament scholar and professor at Knox Theological Seminary, Bruce Waltke, is recorded as saying in the June, 2011, issue of Christianity Today “if the data is overwhelming in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult.” “We have to go with the scientific evidence. I don’t think we can ignore it. I have full confidence in Scripture, but it does not represent what science represents.” The problem with this statement is that Waltke treats the “book of nature,” science, as though it was dropped, printed and bound, straight out of heaven complete with authoritative conclusions.

The data of science is not self-interpreting. The observer comes to the data with a whole host of assumptions and a theory resting on those assumptions, and seeks to organize and interpret the data in a manner consistent with the theory. If the data and the theory can not be correlated, the theory is revisited in an attempt to make it accommodate the data. Sometimes the assumptions themselves must be re-examined.

A great deal of science, therefore, has to do with not only the collection of data, but the interpretation of data. The enterprise is difficult enough, but made doubly so by the fact that the scientist is not a “neutral observer.” He is predisposed in a particular direction. I am amazed that none of the theologians cited in the article even gave lip-service to this fundamental reality that powerfully affects the interpretation of the data.

Paul says this in Romans 1:18-23 (NASB):

(18) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, (19) because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. (20) For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. (21) For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. (22) Professing to be wise, they became fools, (23) and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Paul is talking about a quality of basic human nature: to put it bluntly, we are not neutral observers of the natural world when it comes to data that touches on the existence and activity of God: in fact we are truth-suppressors (v 18). In verse 19, that truth which the book of nature can teach us about God is said to be “evident,” because God makes it evident. In verse 20, we see some aspects of His nature “clearly.” In verse 21, because of our rejection of the Author of truth, our speculations have become futile, and our minds darkened. Claiming wisdom, we are in fact foolish, verse 22. And we have exchanged the glory of the Creator for that of the created thing, verse 23. Paul says in verse 25, that we have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie.”

Now there may be many different ways to apply what has been said by Paul in Romans 1, but one inescapable implication is that when men observe the natural world, they do so in a way that eliminates or diminishes the reality and the activity of the Creator God, in favor of a self-created cosmos.

We are not neutral observers of the data. Just as believers (who have been delivered from the power of sin) still struggle to overcome besetting sin, believers also have a hard time overcoming this anti-God bias in their interpretation of nature. It’s part of the deep corruption brought on by, yes, Adam, and it won’t be fully eliminated until we are with Christ.

The net effect is that scientists are susceptible to insisting on interpreting the data in a way that minimizes or eliminates the truth of God. They aren’t neutral about such things, and are not even aware (unless they believe the Bible) of their bias. It’s a frame of reference thing, like sitting in a kayak in the ocean. Unless you can see the shore (a fixed point of reference), you have no idea whether you are actually being moved by an ocean current.

The overwhelming reigning paradigm in science today (the ocean current, if you get my drift) is naturalism: science, by definition, does not do the supernatural thing. And we want scientists to tell us how to interpret the Bible?

We all agree on one thing: Genesis is not about science. It really isn’t. It’s about how God created the world in six days, complete with Adam and Eve, who fell into sin and dragged their progeny, the whole human race, with them. That’s not science, and let no one pretend that it is. The admission that the account of origins, as given in Genesis, is not science does not mean that it is not a precisely accurate record of how God created all things in six days. The Genesis account is true: it’s what really happened. And as a supernatural event, science simply isn’t competent to comment on it.

Source of Authority: Is All Truth God’s Truth?

The real issue in the controversy over Adam and Eve is not really a question of science, per se. Rather, it deals with this question: what is your source of authority? What is the court of highest appeal when it comes to questions concerning what is true, and what is not?

Scientists such as Francis Collins are committed to the notion, “all truth is God’s truth.” In an interview with Jon Sweeny on explorefaith.org, Collins expressly says, “All truth is God’s truth, and therefore God can hardly be threatened by scientific discoveries.”

Similar statements are made by others connected with BioLogos. Unfortunately the statement is also claimed by those who are completely orthodox in the faith, and who would be horrified if they took its implications as seriously and as consistently as do those who now deny (on the basis of “all truth is God’s truth”) the historicity of Adam and Eve.

On the face of it, “all truth is God’s” is simultaneously both a reasonable and a profound assertion. From one aspect, it seems self-evident: of course all truth is God’s! Who would possibly say otherwise, except perhaps an non-believer?

And yet that pithy saying is laden with far more difficulty than initially meets the eye. First, let’s understand the good and admirable commitments that lay behind it.

The Bible tells us that there are two sources of information about God: general revelation, composed of nature itself, and special revelation, which comprises the sixty-six books of the Bible. You can see these two modes of revelation referred to in Scripture. The Bible authenticates itself as special revelation in numerous places. The orthodox position over the centuries holds that the Bible is God’s own Word, and is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. It was certainly considered by Christ to be so.

When it comes to general revelation, the Bible asserts that nature testifies of its Creator. Texts such as Psalm 8, Psalm 19:1-6 and Romans 1:18-20 (and others) speak of this. Believing philosophers over the centuries have come to speak of the “Book of Nature” and the “Book of Scripture,” both of which are authored by the Creator. Because they are both authored by the same Creator, they are both going to yield true truth. The former will offer up truths about the creatures and the creation, so it is claimed, while the latter will offer up truths about God, and about the spiritual relation that the creation bears to the Creator. Hence the expression, “all truth is God’s truth.”

Here's the rub: first, the book of nature, general revelation, does not speak of nature, but of nature’s Creator. According to Romans 1:19, it is God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature that are clearly seen through creation. The Book of Nature does not testify about the human genome, or the acceleration of gravity, or the nature of light; rather, its express testimony is about the existence of God, His glory and power, and our moral accountability to Him. That’s a big problem, regarding the way in which Biologos and others in their mold seek to understand the Book of Nature.

What they mean by the Book of Nature is not what the Scripture means. Their understanding is that, because the world has been created by a God who loves order, it will possess discoverable, predictable, repeatable characteristics (“laws” and constants and mathematical relationships and such) that the scientist may uncover through careful observation and experimentation. These discoveries, which testify of creation directly, and the Creator indirectly (in the sense of bringing glory to Him) are reliable and true truths. All this is indeed true, but these are not the matters to which general revelation testifies.

In other words, the Book of Nature to which BioLogos scientists allude has a good many more chapters in it than does the “canonical book of nature” to which the Scripture testifies.

The second major difficulty is equally problematic: if you think it is difficult for a Spirit-filled believer to interpret Scripture, it is far more difficult to interpret the data of nature. There are a number of reasons for this, including incomplete data, errors in the recording of data, errors in instrumentation, confusing correlation with causation, the fact that nature is not self-interpreting, the fact that the observer of nature is not neutral in the way he handles his data or his theories or his conclusions (the next post will deal with this). The history of science shows that results of science are almost always, at least at first, provisional and subject to revision.

So at what point do we call the results of science, “truth?” Who gets to baptize those results with sufficient divine authority and divine faithfulness such that they place boundaries around how we interpret Scripture? Who are the “apostles” of science today? Hugh Ross? Richard Dawkins? Francis Collins?

What limits are there on the various sciences shoe-horning themselves under this wonderful idiom? Is there room for psychology, for instance? Are the received truths of, say, the self-esteem movement in psychology (something which has impacted parenting, education, criminology, religion, and the therapeutic vocations for over fifty years), God’s truth? Or, as we are now seeing through the works of men like Roy Baumeister, are the “assured results” of behavioral studies and statistics regarding the usefulness of the self-esteem doctrines now falling before a more careful study? Does this mean that God’s truth changes with the changing results of science? Was it God's truth in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, but no longer? Those who have not received the memo of the latest studies still insist on the usefulness of the self-esteem studies in understanding human behavior. So is it God's truth for them, but not for Baumeister?

Who gets to decide when the results of science countermand centuries of understanding Scripture? Or, to put it another way, what is the ultimate source of authority? Does the “book of nature” get to correct the “book of Scripture”?

One of the supporters of BioLogos and this reinterpretation of Scripture is Pete Enns. The CT article says this: “Enns has little doubt that Paul indeed thought Adam was ‘a real person.’ But Enns suggests that the apostle was reflecting beliefs about human origins that were common among the ancients.” At what point does the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture cease to have meaning? If Paul thought Adam was real, wrote of Adam’s headship as a real headship, wrote of Adam’s transgression as something that really happened, etc, when Adam was not in fact real, what does that do to Paul's argument?

CT tells us what Pete Enns' ultimate source of authority is: To Enns, a literal Adam as a special creation without evolutionary forebears is "at odds with everything else we know about the past from the natural sciences and cultural remains." Apparently the book of nature trumps the book of Scripture.

Think about CT’s citation of Waltke: “. . . Waltke is open to the new thinking. In an interview, the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society affirmed the 'inerrancy of the Bible, but not of interpretations.'" Think about that: if Waltke is willing to undo centuries of orthodox belief regarding the Bible, on the basis of scientific findings, he must be ascribing inerrancy of interpretation to the scientists and their data. Unbelievable.

It’s time to wrap this up. Science is wonderful: it is a gift of God, and as Kepler said, it is indeed "thinking God's thoughts after Him." But it simply is not competent to ever judge Scripture. Here are several reasons why you should completely reject the statement, “All truth is God’s truth.”

1. Never, never, put anything else on the same level of authority as Scripture. At the very least, all 'truth' is not equal!
2. The Bible limits what the book of nature is saying to us: it testifies of God, His glory, power, His act of creation, and of judgment to come.
3. Once the power of pronouncing truth rests in the hand of men as they interpret the book of nature, it will always swallow up the book of Scripture. Every time.
4. While the Scripture may not be broken (John 10:35), identifying “truth” in the natural realm has been, in the history of science, a doggedly difficult task, filled with error and missteps.
5. God never lies. Men do. The history of science includes those who falsify results for various reasons. I do not believe this to be the case of the Genome project; my guess is that their science is very well-done. 
6. Just like Waltke helpfully reminded us that there is no infallible interpretation of Scripture (which is true), neither is there infallible intepretation of the results of science. Yesterday's global cooling (the late 1970's) is today's global warming; but hey, it's just a weather forecast, right?

So, what is your source of authority? Why do you believe what you believe? By faith? Or by evidence? Is Scripture your source of authority? Or do you subject your understanding of spiritual truth to what science says is, or is not, possible?

Oh, I almost forgot. Resurrection is impossible, according to science. Um, why does not the book of nature correct the book of Scripture on that score?

Throwing red meat to a doctrinal dog[matist]

Look, folks, I am absolutely convinced of the power of the truth of the Bible. There has long been this utterly misplaced debate in American Christiandom that poses some sort of antithesis between knowing truth and doing truth, as though somehow the two militate against one another, or are even mutually exclusive.

That's a crock. It ain't so. In fact, there is nothing more dangerous to Christianity than zeal that is not tempered by the confines of truth, i.e., solid doctrine (see Romans 10:1-3). Many of the cults had their genesis in zeal without knowledge.

In today's modern church, zeal without knowledge produces a man-centered therapeutic Christianity that has as much foundation in secular psychobabble about self-esteem, and diverse theories of personality, as it does the Scripture. The unfortunate thing is that many of the good, godly people who support such nonsense are wholly unaware of how man-centered and idolatrous their mix of secularism and Bible actually are. Under the fallacious moniker of "all truth is God's truth" they baptize the results of psychology with same authority they acknowledge in the Scripture, and like Old Testament Israel, wind up with a messy mix of syncretism that worships Jehovah and Baal (and ultimately, self).

Okay, I feel better now. Got that off my chest. Let's get to the red meat part for doctrinal dogmatists.

E. F. Harrison in the introduction to his commentary on Romans, considers some possible purposes in Paul's letter to the Roman church. One that he makes a case for is the idea that Paul is intending to make Rome a home-base for his intended mission to Spain, much the way Antioch functioned for the first three missionary journeys. In order to do this, he needs to get the Roman church up to speed on doctrine, hence, the epistle to the Romans.

Did you catch that incredible connection? In order to make the Roman church an adequate base for missionary expansion to Spain, HE HAS TO GET THEM SOLIDLY SETTLED IN DOCTRINAL TRUTH. Let's run this past you one more time: IN ORDER THAT THEY MIGHT DO MISSIONS, HE MUST TEACH THEM TRUTH!

Wow. Incredible. I love it.

And oh, by the way: for those of us who do not like "complicated, deep sermons;" please re-read the book of Romans, and remember that this complex, in-depth message was sent to a young church that did not have near the background we do in either the Old or the New Testaments.

Maybe the problem of depth is not in the message presented, but in us as listeners. Perhaps Hebrews 5:11-14 applies to us.

Sic' 'em, Paul!

Does the truth about God matter?

Hmm. . . good question. Let's explore that, starting with the notion of truth as something objective and not just personal. . . .

You go into a store, and give the clerk a twenty for an item that costs five dollars. You are expecting fifteen in change. The clerk gives you, instead, one dollar, and insists that, according to her truth, it is correct change. Does that matter to you?

You're at a dealership and while on the lot you negotiate the price of a car. The salesman invites you into his office to close the deal, and when he writes up the sales agreement, the price is double what he agreed to while standing on the lot. Does it matter to you?

You're a single mom, and you manage to land a job that won't require you to work weekends, so you can be home with your small school-age children. After the first week, you check the schedule, and your boss has you working next Saturday and Sunday. Does it matter to you? What will be your response when your boss says, "Well, that agreement you referred to? That's your truth. My truth is posted on the schedule."

You're fueling a Boeing 767. You calculate the required fuel in kilograms. The ground crew takes your figure, and calculates their fuel transfer in pounds (without a conversion factor). Does the truth that one kilogram weighs approximately 2.2 pounds matter? [You can read about the crash landing of Air Canada flight 143 here].

You're planning an unmanned Mars Mission. One mission team uses English units to calculate the propulsion required for trajectory correction maneuvering; the other team uses metric units. Does it matter? [You can read about the loss of the $328,000,000 mission here.]

"Wait just one minute, Chris! Your examples are about physical constants, conversion factors, verbal promises about which we can be certain. You can not just extrapolate that firm nature of truth to the spiritual world!"

Oh, really? Why not?

"Well, because spiritual truth is different! Everyone has their own spiritual truth. There's no single true truth that's true for everyone!"

I see. And, how exactly do you know that? On what grounds do you believe that the truth which bounds the spiritual world is any less certain, settled, objective, or knowable than that which bounds the material world? What gives you such certainty that spiritual truth is . . . uncertain? After all, the concrete realities of the physical world would lead us to expect a similar state of affairs for the unseen, spiritual world.

In fact, some philosophers of science argue that it was precisely the Western belief that, because a real, rational, personal Creator ordained consistent, orderly, laws of nature, these laws may therefore be investigated and discovered by the real, rational, personal minds which He created. This orderly view of the Cosmos (as opposed to animistic, chaotic, and somewhat arbitrary Eastern views of reality) is precisely what made scientific investigation of the natural world not only worthwhile, but pregnant with success. It was this Judeo-Christian worldview which led to centuries of Western domination in science.

If we can agree for a moment, for the purpose of discussion, that certain and knowable spiritual truth does in fact exist, then it follows that knowing God truly is not only important, but vital.

For example, suppose you are on the phone, telling an old high-school classmate you haven't seen in years about the woman you married, and you happen to mention (seriously) that she weighs 200 pounds. Do you think that mischaracterization is going to matter to your 95 lb wife?

Or, talking to the same individual, suppose you tell him that you have a wonderful son who is going to pursue a degree in medicine just as soon as he gets out of jail for drug-dealing. Would such a characterization matter to your son, if (a) he's never been in jail, (b) he's never dealt in drugs, (c) he vomits at the sight of blood, and (d) his real interest is computer science?

If we assume, for the purpose of discussion, that God actually does exist, and that spiritual truth is certain and knowable, then don't you think it would matter to this real Being if what you believe and say about Him is accurate? Does saying true things about God matter?

As a matter of fact, the Bible indicates that it does matter, and matters very much to God. The book of Job ends with God admonishing Job's three friends to offer a burnt offering and to go to Job so that he might pray for them. Why? Because, God says, 

". . . I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has" (Job 42:8).

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul makes a very dogmatic statement about getting the gospel right (the gospel is God's plan to deliver men from the judgment for their sins): "As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:9, NASB).

Yep. Truth about God matters. And He has told us all about Himself in the Bible. Better get it right.