The Law Does Not Contradict the Gospel

In his commentary on Galatians 3:21, Calvin makes some helpful comments. Often in discussions on the Law and its place in the Christian's life, the dichotomy of Law vs. Gospel is often set forth. As Calvin points out, however, this is a category error.

Paul accuses his opponents of trying to make God contradict himself. Both the law and the promises have obviously come from him, so any contradiction between them amounts to blasphemy against God...The law would have been opposed to the promises if it had had the power of justifying...but this was not possible, so any contradiction is removed.

Brenz on the Gospel

By nature human beings are made in such a way that they do not want to accept anything from God free of charge but want to earn it by their works and their righteousness. It is diabolical arrogance not to want to get anything from God free of charge but to earn everything, because this is saying that we want to be God ourselves. This is what Adam began in the garden and from there it has spread to the entire human race. 

Admittedly there is a danger in teaching justification by faith to people who are rebellious and despisers of religion. But just because there is a danger in doing this, it does not follow that the church should be deprived of what is necessary for its salvation. There is danger in producing wine, because people get drunk on wine. Yet God has created wine, which is healthy if used in the right way... No work of the moral or ceremonial law can justify us in the sight of God because no work can be done by us with the degree of perfection and integrity that would be needed for God to accept it. All our good works are imperfect and corrupt. Therefore they cannot justify us... When it is said that the Gentiles are not justified by the works of the law, this does not mean that good works that are moral or part of the natural law are not to be encouraged. Of course the natural law must be observed, and anyone who does not follow it is ungodly and worse than an infidel. What it means is that the merits of our good works have no validity in the judgment of God, nor do they delivery us from the sentence of condemnation. So we must do the works of the natural law but not think that they can save us from perishing or acquit us before the judgment seat of God. There is another kind of righteousness, namely the righteousness of Christ, which is perfect and which is received by faith.

Johannes Brenz, from The Reformation Commentary on Scripture, Galatians, Pg. 70-71

Facebook Page

Just wanted to remind our readers to follow us on Facebook. Often we post links to interesting articles and ebooks that do not make it on to Bring the Books. Following us is simple, you can click this link here or click the Facebook icon in the toolbar to the left. Then "Like" our Facebook page. Once you do this, all of the content will show up in your Facebook news feed. Enjoy!

Is Jesus God? Edited by B.B. Warfield for $0.99

Another project of mine more recently was preparing an eBook of Is Jesus God? which is edited by B.B. Warfield, who also wrote the book's brief introduction. It was actually written by students of Princeton Seminary and published in 1912. The book is succinct and helpful on an important topic. It is now available at the Kindle Store.

The Christian Ministry by Charles Bridges for $0.99

My first book on the Amazon Kindle Store is now available for purchase. Charles Bridges' classic work on the pastoral ministry, The Christian Ministry has been a help to many ministers, and I have personally been greatly affected by Bridges' exhortations and charges to those who would minister to Christ's church. Containing the insights of a seasoned and tested pastor, this is a book that should have been available for the Kindle a long time ago.

I would request that those of you who have a chance to read the book and look over the edition I prepared write reviews so that curious readers will know that the edition I've created for the Kindle is top-notch quality. At $0.99 it is my hope that every pastor or prospective pastor would read this affordable and important work. I hope you'll also agree I have prepared easily the most attractive cover that Amazon has ever seen.

[PS: If there are any enterprising readers of BTB who can help with a better cover for the book, I'd be happy to thank them with a free copy of the book.]

Piper's Newest Book Free

John Piper's latest book, Bloodlines, is available for free download from Desiring God. It isn't an eBook, but rather, a PDF.

How Not to Read

If you are the type to read quickly and to try to digest as much information as you can, then you need to read this quote. In this selection from Charles Bridges we see him reading my mind and seeing right through to my heart.

Ardent minds wish, and seem almost to expect, to gain all at once. There is here, as in religion, "a zeal not according to knowledge."— There is too great haste in decision, and too little time for weighing, for storing, or for wisely working out the treasure Hence arises that most injurious habit of skimming over books, rather than perusing them. The mind has only hovered upon the surface, and gained but a confused remembrance of passing matter, and an acquaintance with first principles far too imperfect for practical utility. The ore of knowledge is purchased in the lump, but never separated, or applied to important objects.

Some again need discretion in the direction of their study. They study, (as Bishop Burnet remarks in the conclusion of his history) books more than themselves. They lose them-selves in the multiplicity of books; and find to their cost, that in reading as well as "making books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh." Bishop Wilkins ob¬serves,—There is as much art and benefit in the right choice of such books, with which we should be most familiar, as there is in the election of other friends or acquaintances, with whom we may most profitably converse. No man can read every¬thing; nor would our real store be increased by the capacity to do so. The digestive powers would be overloaded for want of time to act, and uncontrolled confusion would reign within. It is far more easy to furnish our library than our understanding.

Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry

I am one of those who fools himself into thinking that learning by osmosis is actually possible. If I just surround myself with the things I want to learn, they will find a way to seep into my skin and become a part of my soul. Of course, Bridges brilliantly speaks as a man who has been there. I highly commend his book The Christian Ministry to you. I am currently working on an eBook version of the book which should be available in the Amazon Kindle store shortly.

Something Arminians Say, and Calvinists Would Never Say

James White, in an article for Patheos, points out that Roger Olson's argument against Calvinism is not primarily exegetical, but rather, that he judges God to be a "moral monster" if, in fact, Calvinists are right. White quotes this paragraph by Olson:

One day, at the end of a class session on Calvinism's doctrine of God's sovereignty, a student asked me a question I had put off considering. He asked: "If it was revealed to you in a way you couldn't question or deny that the true God actually is as Calvinism says and rules as Calvinism affirms, would you still worship him?" I knew the only possible answer without a moment's thought, even though I knew it would shock many people. I said no, that I would not because I could not. Such a God would be a moral monster. Of course, I realize Calvinists do not think their view of God's sovereignty makes him a moral monster, but I can only conclude they have not thought it through to its logical conclusion or even taken sufficiently seriously the things they say about God and evil and innocent suffering in the world.

Here is the question - if you are an Arminian (or one of those who refuse to self-identify but who really don't believe in divine election): have you ever heard a Calvinist say in a conversation with you, "If your view of God is right, then I can't worship that God. Your God is evil, sadistic, twisted, horrible, and He isn't worthy of my worship"? Have you ever read anything like this in books by Calvinists?

Let me answer for you - in the whole breadth of conversation and books by Calvinists, I have never heard anything even remotely like this from any Calvinist. It shows, on the part of Olson and those who agree with him, an impiety in one's approach to knowing God. Whereas the Calvinist is unwilling to stand in moral judgment over God deciding whether this or that divine attribute is to their approval, the dissenter (lets call him Arminian for lack of a better term) is often free in offering condemnation of God if He does not measure up.

Some Arminian (pardon the label) reader may see all of this as evidence for the horrible blasphemy Calvinists are at risk of if they are wrong. However, consider that the Calvinist is unwilling to accuse God of wrongdoing. Which position would you rather find yourself in:

1) Holding an honest belief that the Bible teaches election, realizing that, if you are wrong, you taught a wrong view of human/divine freedom. In either case, you have affirmed God's goodness, justice, and holiness.

or 2) Holding an honest belief that the Bible does not teach election, realizing that, if you are wrong, then you taught a wrong view of human/divine freedom. If you are wrong, then you have accused God of wrongdoing - even evil - and have spoken in a way that can only be described as blasphemous and impious.

If the Calvinist is wrong, then he must change his views of divine/human freedom. If the Olsonian Arminian is wrong, then he needs to repent of blasphemy and holding himself as a standard above God.

Did Del Toro Change His Mind, Mid-Series?

[A little over a year ago I reviewed the first two books in Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan's The Strain trilogy. This review of the third book assumes that you've read my review for the first two books, which you can find here.]

*Spoilers*

About this time last year I offered up that the first two books in the trilogy (The Strain and The Fall) were pretty much Left Behind for pagans. I have changed my assessment, now that the trilogy has concluded. This trilogy is Left Behind for pagans who like a little mysticism sprinkled here and there. (The more cruel among us may just say it's for fans of Left Behind.) Initially, I said that del Toro (who refers to himself as a "lapsed Catholic") had taken a naturalistic approach to vampires and that his approach appeared to be intentional. Some described the series as Stephen King meets Michael Crichton.

When I read the third and final book The Night Eternal this last week, I was dumbfounded. It seemed like the series did a 180 worldview shift. Suddenly, now that the ragtag group of rebels have their hands on the infamous vampire text the occito lumen there is this whole backstory which emerges about how The Master (the big bad vampire who is in the process of taking over the world) is actually the ancient bloodworms of an heretofore unknown archangel named Ozryel who had what can only be described as having had vampiric tendencies before his body was torn to pieces by God as a punishment for biting one of his fellow archangels (or something... it was kind of a sloppy story...). Anyway, the series went from being highly scientific/naturalistic in book one to a very hopeless, nihilistic tone in book two, and then ultimately a very spiritual, religious message and tone in the last book.

God, somehow, becomes a big player in the book, and the unlikely second half of the book involves a lot of repetitive phrases such as "Eph stabbed the vampire,"... "Eph's silver sword impaled the vampire," ... "Eph was almost a gonner, but then Mr. Quinlan saved him." I say "unlikely" second half because while The Master has guns and helicopters and weapons galore, Eph and his fellow rebels really only have the Book, a bunch of swords, and a nuke which they plan to use to blow up The Master's birthplace. This nearly all-powerful being who has subjugated the entire human race by book three simply cannot seem to catch this group of oh-so-clever humans who refused to be turned into vampires.

And in the end, there's a reason for that. God is on their side. With God as the tale's before unknown (and certainly unspoken of) deus ex machina we all know there is no stopping Eph, Fet and Nora and their nuclear dream of a world without the Master. And so the drama is stripped from the story. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad that some sort of God won the day in this book, but because he was 100% absent in the first two books, it looks a little like a series that didn't have a built-in ending.

John Owen Ultimate Collection: $2.99

After months of working time and again to create my own John Owen megabook containing all of Owen's books (and never finishing it), someone else has done it. And it's really great from the content end of things. A gigantic amount of writings have been crammed into a single Kindle file, complete with working tables of contents. At $2.99 my design qualms pale when you consider the value. Nevertheless, my complaints are as follows: (1) Tables of Contents in the front of the book have a light font color so that they are difficult to read. (2) Page breaks were not put at the ends of chapters and books. (3) Footnotes are hard to distinguish from main text. Formatting them in a smaller size would have been helpful.

Ignore my qualms. This is a great bargain. It is clear to me that when it comes to this collection, content went before design, but that's completely fine. After all, these are virtually the complete works of one of the greatest Puritan theologians. The text is accurate and does not appear to have been OCR'd. When you consider that this is a hundred times cheaper than the print editions, you understand what a great collection it is.

• A Discourse concerning Evangelical Love, Church Peace, and Unity
• A Brief Declaration and Vindication of The Doctrine of the Trinity
• A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God
• A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, and their Imposition
• Theomachia Autexousiastike, Or A Display of Arminianism
• A Dissertation on Divine Justice or, the Claims of Vindicatory Justice Vindicated
• A Treatise of the Dominion of Sin and Grace
• An Inquiry into the Original, Nature, Institution, Power, Order, and Communion of Evangelical Churches (Complete Vol. 1-2)
• Christologia or, a Declaration of the Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ: God and Man
• Gospel Grounds and Evidences of the Faith of God’s Elect
• Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ in His Person, Office, and Grace
• Of Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Each Person Distinctly, in Love, Grace, and Consolation
• Of Temptation: The Nature and Power of it; The Danger of Entering into it; And the Means of Preventing that Danger
• Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers; The Necessity, Nature, and Means of It
• Pneumatologia: Or, A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit
• Several Practical Cases of Conscience Resolved
• Salus electorum, sanguis Jesu; Or, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
• The Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance Explained and Confirmed; Or The certain Permanency of their Acceptation with GOD, and Sanctification from GOD
• The Complete Sermons (Vol.1-2)
• The Greater Catechism
• The Lesser Catechism
• Vindiciæ Evangelicæ: Or, the Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated and Socinianism Examined

Purchase from Amazon: $2.99

Books Read in 2011

Thanks to the Amazon Kindle, I have read more books this year than ever. Here is the list in chronological order. A '*' connotes a much beloved book.

1. Matthew Commentary, by R.T. France
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Steig Larsson
3. The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard Evans
4. The Third Reich in Power, by Richard Evans
5. The Third Reich at War, by Richard Evans
6. Biblical Theology, by Geerhardus Vos
7. From the Finger of God, by Phillip Ross*
8. Living in God's Two Kingdoms, by David Vandrunen*
9. Inside Scientology, by Janet Reitman
10. The Lost History of Christianity, by Philip Jenkins
11. The Great Train Robbery, by Michael Crichton
12. Isaac's Storm, by Erik Larson
13. The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy*
14. Lost in the Cosmos, by Walker Percy*
15. Commentary on Mark, by R.T. France
16. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole*
17. God, No!, by Penn Jillette
18. Love in the Ruins, by Walker Percy
19. The Johnstown Flood, by David McCullough
20. Empire of Illusion, by Chris Hedges
21. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
22. Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman*
23. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
24. Bloody Crimes, by James L. Swanson
25. Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson*
26. Where the Conflict Really Lies, by Alvin Plantinga*

Book Review: Where The Conflict Really Lies by Alvin Plantinga

Christian apologetics tends to be extremely defensive in nature. “Defending the faith” is the way we often think of apologetics. Of course we know that apologetics is more than simply defensive, but it is fair to say that a large amount of energy by Christians is spent responding to atheists – be it the so-called four horsemen of atheism (Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, or the late Chris Hitchens) or simply the run-of-the-mill atheists whom we've all encountered at one time or another.

Right out of the gate, I want to say this about Alvin Plantinga’s new book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism - he takes the fight to the atheists. After reading this book, it becomes apparent that if they want to carry the mantle of rationality then naturalists/atheists have a lot of work to do.

From the beginning, in typical philosophical fashion, Plantinga is straightforward about the case he is about to spend the book making:

My overall claim in this book: there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism. (90-91) [All references are from the Kindle edition of the book]

He does not insist that science is at peace with every metaphysical commitment, however: “there is a science/religion (or science/ quasi-religion) conflict, all right, but it isn’t between science and theistic religion: it’s between science and naturalism” (103-104).

In Part I of the book, Plantinga recounts the alleged conflict that is said to exist between theism and science. He reviews arguments by Dawkins, Dennett, and Paul Draper, demonstrating that their commitment to naturalism is a metaphysical commitment and that science (and especially evolution) ought not to necessarily entail naturalism as the atheists are wont to insist. He also spends an extended amount of time discussing the question of whether a belief in a God who does miracles and “intervenes” in the world undermines the possibility of scientific exploration or knowledge. Arguing that science deals with the possibility of knowledge within a system when it is closed, it is silent on laws within a system when it is open (such as when a being intervenes from the outside).

Some may find Plantinga’s method of apologetics to be somewhat difficult to swallow. He believes that God’s existence cannot be strictly proven, but his view that God has implanted a sensus divinitatis within mankind means that a belief in God is properly basic and provides an epistemic ground for theistic belief. That is to say, just as we do not perceive other minds to exist, or perceive this house to be standing in front of us through a chain of arguments or inferences, we likewise do not believe that God exists because of a chain of inferences or arguments. Plantinga says that we perceive God rather than arguing to God.



That does not mean that defeaters cannot be presented to the perceiver of God. Theism is not, in principle, nonfalsifiable. Plantinga's argument for proper basicality cannot be used to prove any and every belief. The atheist, it is alleged, offers alleged defeaters for this belief, and the alleged defeaters are to be dealt with.

It is perfectly obvious that theists won’t be able to give an explanation of mind in general—they won’t be able to offer an explanation for the state of affairs consisting in there being at least one mind—because, naturally enough, there isn’t any explanation of the existence of God. But that is certainly not a point against theism. Explanations come to an end; for theism they come to an end in God. For any other view of the same level of generality they also come to an end. The materialist or physicalist, for example, doesn’t have an explanation for the existence of elementary particles or, more generally, contingent physical or material beings; that there are some is, from that perspective, a brute fact. It isn’t easy to say precisely what counts as begging the question; but to fault theism for failing to have an ultimate explanation of mind is as good a candidate as any. (545-551)

One of the most important claims Plantinga defends in the book is that evolution does not entail the claim that natural selection is an unguided process. The claim that evolution is unguided is a metaphysical commitment which makes a judgment in an area where science cannot speak with authority.

On the one hand, therefore, we have the scientific theory, and on the other, there is the claim that the course of evolution is not directed or guided or orchestrated by anyone; it displays no teleology; it is blind and unforeseeing; as Dawkins says, it has no aim or goal in its mind’s eye, mainly because it has no mind’s eye. This claim, however, despite its strident proclamation, is no part of the scientific theory as such; it is instead a metaphysical or theological add-on. On the one hand there is the scientific theory; on the other, the metaphysical add-on, according to which the process is unguided. The first is part of current science, and deserves the respect properly accorded to a pillar of science; but the first is entirely compatible with theism. The second supports naturalism, all right, but is not part of science, and does not deserve the respect properly accorded science. And the confusion of the two—confusing the scientific theory with the result of annexing that add-on to it, confusing evolution as such with unguided evolution—deserves not respect, but disdain. (4233-4240)

This claim of Plantinga’s will meet with some resistance from orthodox Christians who have (justifiably) less than friendly feelings towards evolution (especially given the new arguments surrounding Adam & Eve). The point, which is not to be missed, however, is that evolution as such, does not present a defeater for theism. It may present a defeater for a literal reading of Genesis, it may present a defeater for the Westminster Confession’s statements on creation, and it may present a defeater for inerrancy in general, but it does not present a defeater for Christian theism.

The truth of the theory of natural selection, therefore, doesn’t for a moment show that all of life has come to be by way of unguided natural selection, or even that it is biologically possible that it has come to be that way. It is therefore a mistake to say with Dennett that “the theory of natural selection shows how every feature of the world can be the product of a blind, unforesightful, nonteleological, ultimately mechanical process of differential reproduction.” (717-720)

The point in Plantinga’s discussion is not whether evolution is true or how old the universe is – the point is that even if one believes in evolution, the metaphysical claim of naturalism, which is often attached to evolution, is an added assumption. The one does not necessarily entail the other.

In Part II of the book, Plantinga reviews the superficial conflict that does exist between theism and modern science. He talks about evolutionary psychology as well as modern naturalistic methodologies in scripture scholarship (higher biblical criticism). Plantinga concedes that evolutionary psychology and higher biblical criticism cannot co-exist happily with a theistic worldview. However, he also argues that these issues are superficial in nature and that they do not offer defeaters for theistic belief since they entail the very metaphysical assumptions that are at issue.

In Part III Plantinga reviews the ways in which theism finds happy concord with science. He discusses the merits of fine-tuning arguments and Behe’s irreducible complexity. Some may be interested Plantinga’s evaluation of fine-tuning arguments from his analytical-philosophical perspective. In sum, he does not find the arguments to be nearly as strong as some classical apologists have:

The right conclusion, I think, is that the [Fine Tuning Argument] offers some slight support for theism. It does offer support, but only mild support. Granted: this is not a very exciting conclusion, not nearly as exciting as the conclusion that the argument is extremely powerful, or the conclusion that it is wholly worthless. It does, however, have the virtue of being correct. (3138-3140)

It is worth the effort to read his arguments for this conclusion, though we don’t have time to work through them in this review. He also has this conclusion regarding Michael Behe’s irreducible complexity:

On balance, then: Behe’s design discourses do not constitute irrefragable arguments for theism, or even for the proposition that the structures he considers have in fact been designed. Taken not as arguments but as design discourses they fare better. They present us with epistemic situations in which the rational response is design belief—design belief for which there aren’t strong defeaters. The proper conclusion to be drawn, I think, is that Behe’s design discourses do support theism, although it isn’t easy to say how much support they offer. (3679-3683)

He also discusses the “deep concord” between theism and science. He discusses the friendliness between the theistic view of human knowledge and the reliability of the senses, mathematics, simplicity, and contingency. Pointing to the Christian view of the image of God in man, his argument centers on the fact that God has made man to be a knower and has designed man’s mind to have a correspondence with the world around him.

According to theism, God has created us in such a way that we reason in inductive fashion; he has created our world in such a way that inductive reasoning is successful. This is one more manifestation of the deep concord between theism and science. (4111-4113)

Atheists cannot make such a claim. Part IV of the book is where Plantinga gets the knives out. Whereas Christians are able to account for induction, simplicity, the constancy of physical laws, the abstract non-physical laws of mathematics, and reliability of the senses, atheists have no such ground for rationality. Regarding physical laws,

[F]rom the point of view of naturalism, the character of these laws is something of an enigma. What is this alleged necessity they display, weaker than logical necessity, but necessity nonetheless? What if anything explains the fact that these laws govern what happens? What reason if any is there for expecting them to continue to govern these phenomena? Theism provides a natural answer to these questions; naturalism stands mute before them. (3939-3942)

Plantinga goes farther than to simply argue that atheists can’t explain the universe. He actually argues that rationality and atheism are mutually destructive. His argument that naturalism is self-defeating has been around in printed form for years. However, in this book it forms the meat and potatoes of his argument against naturalism.

What I will argue is that naturalism is in conflict with evolution, a main pillar of contemporary science. And the conflict in question is not that they can’t both be true (the conflict is not that there is a contradiction between them); it is rather that one can’t sensibly accept them both. (4252-4254)

What Plantinga essentially argues is that unguided natural selection only promotes the survival of the organism in question - not the gaining of truth. This means that while Christians believe we are designed to know truth and that there is a correspondence between the world and our senses, naturalism can make no such claim. Plantinga’s entire argument, formally stated, goes as follows. [KEY: P=Probability R=Rationality N=Naturalism E=Evolution]

(1) P(R/N&E) is low.
(2) Anyone who accepts (believes) N&E and sees that P(R/ N&E) is low has a defeater for R.
(3) Anyone who has a defeater for R has a defeater for any other belief she thinks she has, including N&E itself.
(4) If one who accepts N&E thereby acquires a defeater for N&E, N&E is self-defeating and can’t rationally be accepted. Conclusion: N&E can’t rationally be accepted. This argument shows that if someone accepts N&E and sees that P(R/N&E) is low, then she have a defeater for N&E, a reason to reject it, a reason to doubt or be agnostic with respect to it.

After stating the argument, Plantinga reviews a possible attempt by the naturalist to squirm out from under it:

Naturalistic evolution gives its adherents a reason for doubting that our beliefs are mostly true; chances are they are mostly mistaken. If so, it won’t help to argue that they can’t be mostly mistaken; for the very reason for mistrusting our cognitive faculties generally, will be a reason for mistrusting the faculties that produce belief in the goodness of that argument. This defeater, therefore, can’t be defeated. Hence the devotee of N&E has an undefeated defeater for N&E. N&E, therefore, cannot rationally be accepted—at any rate by someone who is apprised of this argument and sees the connections between N&E and R. (4757-4762)

All in all, Plantinga’s book takes the fight to the atheists. They have serious problems to work through which are endemic to their worldview. How an atheist proposes to solve the problem of rationality with unguided natural selection is beyond me. I am not heavily involved enough in the contemporary debates to really know for myself whether there even has been a proposed solution offered to Plantinga’s past iterations of the argument that naturalism is self-defeating.

Presuppositionalists will have mixed feelings about the book. On the one hand, they will utterly despise Plantinga's philosophical approach, which involves a great deal of discussion about probabilities (presuppositionalists are allergic to probabilities). They will also not agree with Plantinga's method of arguing for theism in general rather than Christian theism particularly. On the other hand, this book puts a large number of arguments and tools into the hands of the presuppositional apologist.

All in all, Plantinga’s book is an apologetic tour de force. Philosophically rigorous and yet written at a popular level, it constitutes a bold introduction to Alvin Plantinga which many lay Christians have heretofore not had popular access to, and it constitutes one of the strongest challenges to atheism in print. It may not be the book that many want, and most of his readers will not agree with Plantinga on everything (especially his apparent concession to theistic evolution), but one thing is for certain – this is the book which Christendom has needed for years, it is the pinnacle and summation of Plantinga’s philosophical prowess, and distills years of Plantinga's work into a single volume. We are blessed to finally have it.

Interesting Take on the Starlight Issue

I don't know much about Dr. Hartnett, but this book seems to present some compelling arguments with regard to the starlight issue which we've been discussing here.

Dr. Humphreys found that if you assume the universe has a center, and that God stretched it out (rapid expansion) during creation week, that there would have been a time dilation event near the Earth that would slow down time on Earth to a standstill while time passed in the universe at normal rate. This would result in a few days of time (creation week) passing on Earth while billions of years worth of time pass in the rest of the universe. This explains how the starlight could have gotten to Earth in a few Earth days.

Paradoxically, it also means the Universe is both 6000 years old and billions of years old, depending on the location of the clock.

Check out the review if this is of interest to you.

Summoning Plantinga's Help in Responding to My Own Starlight Argument

Some time back, I posted an argument against the young earth view of creation. In that post, I stated that if young earth creationism is true, then we can see stars which are millions of light years away which never existed until most of the light years necessary for the light to reach earth would have already transpired. At its most basic level, my argument asserted that the Young Earth model of creationism yielded a God whose world is not epistemologically discernible. If, I argued, God has caused the stars in the sky to have the appearance of having existed at a time when they did not, then foundations for knowledge are undercut. The very first act in the universe appears to have had intertwined with it, a deception.

Others have argued – and this is perhaps the most persuasive argument possible – that God created the light already in transit. In response, it is first important to note that the argument is not that God could not create the light already in transit. That is not in question. What is in question is the implications for general revelation and knowledge in general if God causes things to appear a certain way when they are not (or were not) actually so. This argument tells us that, though the speed of light is basically constant, it was created in transit to earth...My basic argument is that if one wants to deny that the stars which are millions of light years away existed as we see them, then they are not epistemologically justified in believing in the existence of the sun.

Well now, as some of you who follow Bring the Books regularly know, I am a newly minted Young Earther myself. How - it must be asked, do I respond to my own views with regard to the issue of Starlight and its implications for epistemology?

What is most apparent to me, with regard to my starlight argument, is that it proves too much. If, in fact, it destroys knowledge and science (for God to cause something to happen which is contrary to the observable natural order) then we are left with a Bultmanian task of de-mytholization or else a gross unwillingness to follow our principles where they lead.

Until recently, I did not have a very well thought-through philosophy of the relationship between miracles and epistemology. But in Alvin Plantinga's newest book, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, he discusses precisely this issue.

Miracles are often thought to be problematic, in that God, if he were to perform a miracle, would be involved in "breaking," going contrary to, abrogating, suspending, a natural law. But given this conception of law, if God were to perform a miracle, it wouldn't at all involve contravening a natural law. That is because, obviously, any occasion on which God performs a miracle is an occasion when the universe is not causally closed; and the law says nothing about what happens when the universe is not causally closed. Indeed, on this conception it isn't even possible that God breaks a law of nature. For to break a law, he would have to act specially in the world; yet any time at which he acted specially in the world would be a time at which the universe is not causally closed; hence no law applies to the circumstances in question and hence no law gets broken.

Loc. 1259-65, Kindle Edition

Here is where Plantinga's thoughts help us regain our footing in dealing with the supposed negative epistemological ramifications for a model of creation which involves God's violating the natural order. The original creation of the universe was not done while nature was a closed system. As a matter of fact, the creation itself was an open event which was already contrary to the natural laws as we commonly think of them. It follows that the starlight which we see, if it was created 10,000 years ago (give or take) originated in an open system and not within a closed system. Science is not able to credibly rule on whether the universe is an open or a closed system since that would be a metaphysical claim which is outside of its purview.

If Plantinga is right, and it is technically not possible for God to break the laws of nature then we must dispense with this whole idea that an act of special creation ought to reflect the fingerprint of something created within an open system (i.e. not everything in the universe should not necessarily be expected to look less than 10,000 years old). It may not be possible for us to tell the difference between God's common work and what we often know as the miraculous. Another way of looking at it is, we ought not to reduce God's work to "within nature" and "against nature." Just because starlight was created rather recently does not mean that it is incumbent upon God to let the light take the billion-odd years that are supposed to have been taken for it to reach earth. Nor does it render science or knowledge impossible. Although we deduce from the speed of light and the distance of the stars that it has taken billions of years for this light to reach us, this is only a valid deduction if we understand all of the circumstances related to the creation of stars and light. The circumstances of the Creation, however, are far more mysterious than we would often like to admit. As has been argued to me by many young-earthers, it is no more contrary to the laws of nature for God to create light "in transit" than for God to create in the first place.

If the old-earth defender wants to dig his heels in here, he must be able to account for the fact that God's existence (given an orthdox understanding of God) means that nature is not a closed system. How does an old-earther argue for an old universe based on the speed of light without painting himself into a Bultmanian view of nature which requires natural consistency from beginning to end, ala the closed system model? I'm not sure. Perhaps someone will offer me an answer in the comments.

D. A. Carson on the New Testament Canon