Feedback archive → Feedback 2005

Christian chemist’s assumptions lead to accusations

This feedback comes from a self-described Christian who took issue with our site on a number of issues. First, he accused us of claiming that a Christian can’t be an evolutionist, although we have repeatedly said otherwise. Second, he accused us of not understanding science, which would be news to the Ph.D. scientists on our staff with earned Ph.D.s from secular universities. Third, he presented evidence that allegedly supported evolution, but this ignored several indisputable facts. Fourth, he argued about what Christianity is allegedly all about, but he cited only parts of what it’s all about, ignoring others. Fifth, he accused us of taking the whole Bible literally, then raised counterexamples to our supposed method in areas such as the Lord’s Supper, Baptism and morality.

We print his letter below, first in its entirety without comment, followed by the entire letter with Dr Sarfati’s point-by-point response interspersed as per normal email fashion.

Dear J.S.:

Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s comment may be applicable here. He said, ‘When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry.’ ;)

One of the main points of CMI’s presuppositional approach is that the Bible should be the magisterial authority. As a Christian, I would have thought that you would have agreed with Christ who said ‘Scripture cannot be broken’ (John 10:35; see also Jesus Christ on the infallibility of Scripture).  And one would have thought that you would concur with His chosen Apostle Paul that ‘all Scripture [which must logically include Genesis] is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness’ (see The Authority of Scripture). Therefore, as the article outlined, it would be improper for a Christian to allow the Bible to be relegated to the backburner, as it were, in a discussion about creation.

Actually, as if you had examined our site more fully (as our feedback rules request) you would have found:

• Is it possible to be a Christian and an evolutionist? A leading creationist answers an often-asked question
• The big picture: Being wrong about the six days of creation does not automatically mean someone is not a Christian. But if you think that makes it unimportant, stand back and look at the big picture ….
• Do I have to believe in a literal creation to be a Christian?

As you can see, we state that one can be an evolutionist and still be a Christian, but that the two are logically incompatible. I.e. that theistic evolution is both scientifically and biblically untenable. But many people are saved due to ‘blessed inconsistency’—there is no hint in the Bible that the ability to hold mutually contrary thoughts in the same skull is an unforgivable sin.

How does one decide which parts of the Bible are to be ignored as historically and/or scientifically inaccurate? Science tells us that men do not rise from the dead and that virgins do not conceive. Yet, our very salvation is from the ‘last Adam’ (1 Corinthians 15:45), who through the bloodline of the Virgin Mary was thereby our Kinsman-Redeemer (Isaiah 59:20), saving us from the sins of the first Adam in the Garden of Eden, and rose from the dead which validated His claims.

Again, it appears that you did not search the site to find out what we actually do say, rather than being critical about things which we do not say (a.k.a., building straw man arguments), or in fact advise against saying. We caution our readers against that very argument in both the article, Moving forward: Arguments we think creationists shouldn’t use, a condensation of our longer FAQ, Arguments we think creationists should NOT use; and the DVD of the same title.

No, that you presuppose naturalism, which is the same thing for all practical purposes when it comes to origins. Atheistic biology professor Will Provine of Cornell Uni said:

‘… belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.’ [‘No free will’. In Catching up with the Vision, ed. Margaret W Rossiter, Chicago University Press, 1999, p. S123.]

That is a lie and a defamation. And for the whole facts, evidence, theory and records debate, there is this thing called science that you are wholly and unfortunately unfamiliar with. If there was time I would love to give you the benefit of my education in science, but I know there is not time and I fear that you lack the aptitude and willingness. The scientific process is not altogether difficult for even laymen such as yourself to understand.

We really would suggest you familiarize yourself with our ministry before making such unfounded accusations. Our speakers and authors consist of scientists, and other highly trained people, who hail from well-respected universities. I myself have an earned doctorate in science, and co-authored a paper in Nature on high-T_c superconductors when only 22.

That’s highly debatable in the first place. E.g. trilobites have such sophisticated eyes that they look as if they have been designed by a master physicist, yet they are right down in the Cambrian. There is also evidence for organisms complex enough to photosynthesize at 3.7 evolutionary billions of years ago (Rosing, M.T. and Frei, R., U-rich Archaean sea-floor sediments from Greenland—indications of >3700 Ma oxygenic photosynthesis, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 217:237–244, 2004).

Or rather, why do you ask leading questions?

Or that the succession does not represent a sequence of age at all but a sequence of burial by the Flood and its aftermath. For more information, see Dr Tas Walker’s Biblical Geology Page.

Of course, and as pointed out earlier, many work at Creation Ministries International. But also, being ‘religious’ means nothing if it is not the true religion revealed in the Bible—see Is evolution ‘anti-religion’? It depends.

This is a deceptive (intentional or not) equivocation—see Definitions as slippery as eels. 

You may want to suggest the same to your secular peers, then, who assume the conclusion of abiological origins based on (blind) faith, contrary to the understanding that life comes from life (Law of Biogenesis). (See also, Origin of Life Questions and Answers and, more specifically, we have a DVD/VHS resource entitled Chemicals to Living Cell: Fantasy or Science?)

And that is the point of Creation: ‘where’s the proof?’ that you cited yourself!

You have it back-to-front. The biblical framework is the only one that provides the foundation for science, voluntary will, logic and morality, as I explained in this feedback response. Atheism, or the theistic evolutionary god who didn’t act miraculously in creation, can provide no such foundations.

We really would stress, again, that you familiarize yourself with what we do teach, rather than building these straw men arguments to knock down by complaining about what we do not teach. Also it would be good if you learned the difference between origins and operational science.

That rules out evolution from goo to you via the zoo! Actually we agree that science is ‘about categorizing and numbering and computing and estimating and predicting and calculating’; however, it is also about making assumptions based on what one observes, and all assumptions are ‘tainted’, as it were, by the presuppositional framework.

How would you know what our followers are like? You are wrong anyway, as well as being hypocritical for dishing out offense while bleating piously about imagined offenses on our part.

How about His teaching on marriage which was based on the fact that God made a man and a woman ‘from the beginning of creation’?

Salvation from what? Sin? Where do you get that concept from, if Genesis 3 is not history? Furthermore, if the first man, Adam, didn’t sin and bring death, what is the point of the Last Adam, Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 45)?

It is only through the bias based on Scripture, inspired by God, that we have the Eyewitness to the truth, rather than blind guesswork. We have stated many times that science should not be used to quantify Scripture (or God), but rather that Scripture is to take the magisterial role over science. Again you, seemingly unfamiliar with anything about our ministry, have claimed we are doing things to which we are diametrically opposed.

Why do you continue to ask such deceitful leading questions? If you had read our position on this matter more carefully (or at all), you would have known that we have stated that we do not believe that the whole Bible should be taken literally, as in Russell Grigg’s article Should Genesis be taken literally, as well as defended that point in answer to one of our reader’s feedback, but rather that it be read plainly, keeping both the style of writing and its context in mind, as the original reader would have understood it.

No, because this comes from the context. You are referring to John 6:51-58:

⁵¹ ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’

⁵² Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’

⁵³ Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

⁵⁴ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

⁵⁵ For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

⁵⁶ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.’

The context of the verse has nothing to do with the Last Supper. The Last Supper was instituted at Passover a long time after the John 6 discourse. Also, the Lord’s Supper was instituted at a Passover meal, where the whole idea is remembrance. The Passover is loaded with representative symbols, e.g. the salt water is (=represents) the tears of suffering in Egypt, the haroseth is (represents) the mortar, the bitter herbs represent the bitterness of bondage.

Thus in its grammatical context, it is clearly metaphorical. This can be shown by comparing it with other similar constructions in Scripture, ‘I am the true vine’ (John 15:1), ‘I am the door’ (KJV; gate in NIV) (John 10:7). So a Jew, on hearing Jesus’ words ‘This is my blood’, would have recalled 2 Samuel 23:15–17:

¹⁵ David longed for water and said, ‘Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!’

¹⁶ So the three mighty men broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the Lord.

¹⁷ ‘Far be it from me, O Lord, to do this!’ he said. ‘Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?’ And David would not drink it. Such were the exploits of the three mighty men.

Although David said of this water, ‘this is the blood …’, he clearly did not mean that the water that his men risked their lives for was transformed into the substance of their blood, while retaining the accidents of water.

The passage about eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood can again be understood by comparing Scripture with Scripture. In the same discourse, Jesus had said (John 6:35):

³⁵ Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.’

Note that ‘coming’ to Jesus stopped hunger, and ‘believing’ in Him stopped thirst. Thus ‘eating’ was a figure of speech for coming, and ‘drinking’ = believing.

All this shows how important comparing Scripture with Scripture is, and understanding it in its historical context.

Where? In my article Loving God with all your mind: logic and creation, I show that this teaching is based on a logical fallacy:

The fallacy of denying the antecedent is committed by some groups that teach the error of baptismal regeneration by citing the following statement of Christ according to the Majority Text of Mark 16:16:

16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

The first part of the verse is an implication: if a person believes and is baptized then he will be saved. It is invalid to argue from this that anyone who is not baptized will not be saved. The second part is an explicit statement that unbelief results in condemnation.

To demonstrate the fallacy, examine the following statement which is in the same logical form: ‘Whatever has feathers and flies is a bird, but whatever does not have feathers is not a bird.’ This statement does not teach that there are no flightless birds.

[Update: see also Is baptism necessary for salvation?.]

Which ‘you’ were you disparaging here? The author of the article that you question? The ‘you’ (and his wife) that would answer your feedback (both of whom I can assure you have been obediently baptized—though not to be saved but to be obedient and publicly declare that they had already been saved)? Or the collective ‘you’ of hundreds of scientists, ministry workers, and volunteers in our international ministry? Before broadbrushing anyone in such a libelous manner, you should have read our publicized Statement of Faith:

Salvation is a gift received by faith alone in Christ alone and expressed in the individual’s repentance, recognition of the death of Christ as full payment for sin, and acceptance of the risen Christ as Saviour, Lord and God {ff., Ephesians 2:8-9}.

Note that Paul said we are saved by believing the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15), but had earlier said, ‘For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel’ (1 Corinthians 1:17). Baptism is something saved people should do, not what people should do to be saved.

Evidently you don’t realize that Jesus Himself endorsed the fact that this was God’s command to ancient Israel:

For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ (Matthew 15:4).

While this sounds rather harsh for squeamish modern thoughts, ancient societies were always one step away from anarchy. It was especially serious for Ancient Israel, because this is the people from whom the Messiah would come. Rebellion against parents would threaten the entire social order, so God dealt with it very strongly in the Old Testament. The penalty of being stoned to death was imposed because cursing one’s parents and ignoring their authority was considered a serious offense before God, the same as murder or adultery. Just the threat of this penalty was probably enough to curb rebellion, unlike the way that rebellion of youth is encouraged and celebrated today. I explain more about the role of the Mosaic Law in Answer to philosophy/religion professor on biblical exegesis and the problem of evil.

Actually, what Jesus was addressing was not the written law but the Pharisaic oral traditions (Mark 7)—note that He said ‘you have heard …’. This was totally different from ‘it is written …’ which settled matters for Him—for Jesus, what Scripture said, God said.

More than that—I have learned the Jewish context. The passages in Matt 5:39 (ff., Luke 6:29) that refer to turning the other cheek are as follows:

‘But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.’

But note that these verses do not stand alone as a solitary lesson, but are examples of the greater picture. Verse 44 of Matthew 5 continues, ‘But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you’ and in Luke 6, verses 46–49, we read:

‘And why do you call Me, “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to Me, and hears My words, and acts upon them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood rose, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard, and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house upon the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.’

This is the education that Creation Ministries International strives to present with its ministry: that Scripture is true and can be believed from the very first verse. This is not achieved by ‘turning the other cheek’, when that phrase is equivocally used to mean ‘turn a blind eye’ to the ever-increasing attacks propagated by those hostile to Christianity. This is the shoring up against the torrents of anti-biblical and anti-Christian misinterpretation, misinformation, and evolutionarily (and humanistically) biased presuppositions, providing protection to the foundations by enabling Christians, internationally, to follow the edict of 1 Peter 3:15 to ‘always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you’, and 2 Corinthians 10:5, ‘We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.’ (See also What? A Christian mind?) We also follow Christ’s example of the challenge-riposte paradigm.

Don’t you find it a bit odd to be questioning our ability to ‘turn the other cheek’ after the preceding tirade of insults and the follow-up jab of calling us ‘deluded’? Aside from indicating that obvious contradiction, it should be pointed out that it is unfortunate that today’s society seems to equate ‘turning the other cheek’ with the revised meaning of ‘tolerance’ (see The tyranny of ‘tolerance’ and The hypocrisy of intolerant ‘tolerance’). Rather than ‘cherry-picking’ platitudes, it is important to read Scripture in its context.

And you as well. But I have to say that I wouldn’t want to be blessed by The god of an old earth. This is a key problem with all long-age compromise. See also The Fall: a cosmic catastrophe—if you are sincere in wanting to know where we are coming from, please try to understand how billions of years of death and suffering before sin undermines Jesus’ teaching. Even the atheist Jacques Monod understood this:

(Dr) Jonathan Sarfati
CMI – Brisbane, Australia

• Ed. note: see feedback on this response