Book Review: Foundations

Foundations: Sermons on Genesis 1-3, Peter H. Holtvlüwer, Tintern: Little Angels Press, 2010.  Paperback, 163 pages, $15.00.

Attacks on the truths of God’s Word never stop.  This is also obviously true for the first three chapters of the Bible.  Outside the church there are voices that outrightly deny what the Bible says about our creation and fall.  Sadly, even inside the church there are voices that weaken what Scripture says about these things by denying their historicity.  We can be thankful to God for faithful preachers of the Word like Peter Holtvlüwer, minister of the Spring Creek Canadian Reformed Church in Tintern, Ontario.

This book contains a series of sermons he preached to his previous congregation in Carman, Manitoba.  There are 13 sermons and they cover almost every verse of Genesis 1-3.  The sermons retain the style of sermons and they include the sort of references that one might expect from a pastor addressing a rural congregation.

There are three reasons why I’m going to recommend this book to you.  First, the author takes the biblical text seriously as a record of historical events.  There is no capitulation here to Darwinism, theistic evolution, or anything of the sort.  Second, Holtvlüwer constantly brings everything to a focus on Jesus Christ.  These sermons are Christ-centered and therefore edifying and God-glorifying.  Third, Foundations features clearly written prose.  The author explains Scripture in a direct and easy-to-understand fashion.

Preachers who review other preachers’ sermons are in an awkward position.  We all have our own ideas of what should be left in a sermon and what should be left out.  In this instance, too, there are some things that I would have liked to seen included.  As an example, especially in the light of some current discussions with our URC brothers, it would be good to see a reason why Holtvlüwer regards the covenant in Genesis 3 as a renewal of the covenant from Genesis 2.  He appears to assume that this is an obvious fact.  Or in chapter 12, he writes that “we often must learn to forgive ourselves too.”  Where does Scripture teach that?  Again, this seems to be assumed rather than established.

Overall, this is a valuable contribution to our Reformed community.  Holtvlüwer’s book could be used in public worship for reading sermons – song selections, etc. are included in an appendix.  It could also be used with profit for personal devotional reading.  Moreover, the author has generously decided to use all the proceeds for this book to support a worthy cause in Brazil.  The Reformed Reading Room in Recife is part of Canadian Reformed mission efforts in north-eastern Brazil.  God has used it in a fantastic way for the spread of the biblical gospel.  Your purchase of this book will contribute to the ongoing dissemination of the good news of Jesus Christ.  Ordering information can be found online at:  http://www.sermonsongenesis123.com .

Science Is Not Neutral

The other day I posted my review of Alister McGrath’s The Passionate Intellect.  One thing I didn’t mention in this review was this paragraph:

When properly and legitimately applied, the scientific method is religiously neutral — neither supportive nor critical of religious beliefs.  This means that scientific atheists have to spin science in certain ways in order to maintain their core dogma that science disproves religion.  And since the scientific method clearly does not entail atheism, those who wish to use science in defense of atheism are obliged to smuggle in a series of non-empirical metaphysical ideas to their accounts of science and hope that nobody notices this intellectual sleight of hand.  (111)

McGrath goes on to describe how Dawkins “represents genes as active agents, in control of their own destiny and ours” (112).  Much of what Dawkins writes about this is metaphysical speculation.

I think the key qualification in McGrath’s assertion is “properly and legitimately applied.”  What does that mean?  McGrath doesn’t say.  Nor does he go into the effects of sin on the human mind in applying and interpreting the scientific method.

I thought about this further as I was reading the November issue of The Atlantic yesterday on my flight back from BC.  There’s an article by David H. Freedman, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science.”  It’s about Dr. John Ioannidis and his studies regarding medical research.  Medical research, it turns out, is rather fickle.  And some of that can be traced back to human failings in the scientific process.  Freedman writes:

We think of the scientific process as being objective, rigorous, and even ruthless in separating out what is true from what we merely wish to be true, but in fact it’s easy to manipulate results, even unintentionally or unconsciously.  “At every step in the process, there is room to distort results, a way to make a stronger claim or to select what is going to be concluded,” says Ioannidis.  “There is an intellectual conflict of interest that pressures researchers to find whatever it is that is most likely to get them funded.”

This is somewhat different than what McGrath was speaking about.  The smuggling in of metaphysical assumptions is different than manipulating the scientific process, but the two are not unconnected.  In fact, metaphysical presuppositions can lead one to consciously or unconsciously manipulate data at various stages of the process — from the way a question is posed through to the way the answers are interpreted.

Ioannidis published a paper with a detailed mathematical proof demonstrating that “researchers will come up with wrong findings most of the time.”  So much for scientific objectivity or neutrality.  Freedman describes this further:

Simply put, if you’re attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you’re motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you’ll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right.  His model predicted, in different fields of medical research, rates of wrongness roughly corresponding to the observed rates at which findings were later convincingly refuted: 80 percent of non-randomized studies (by far the most common type) turn out to be wrong, as do 25 percent of supposedly gold-standard randomized trials, and as much as 10 percent of the platinum-standard large randomized trials.  The article spelled out his belief that researchers were frequently manipulating data analyses, chasing career-advancing findings rather than good science, and even using the peer-review process — in which journals ask researchers to help decide which studies to publish — to suppress opposing views.

Now all of that is in reference to what we call “operational science,” regarding scientific observations and research in a world that can be tested and observed in the here and now.  Imagine then what happens in the realm of origins science, or historical science.  If scientists can often be wrong in what they can observe now, how much more so when they theorize about what happened eons ago?  The effects of sin on the human mind and on science should never be discounted or minimized.  Even the best science is done by sinners.  There is only one absolutely reliable source of public, objective truth.  Dr. John Byl has more to say about all this.

The almighty God is my faithful Father and he gives everything its meaning (Lord’s Day 9)

Stephen Jay Gould is a very intelligent man and an effective communicator.  He’s written extensively on the natural world and science.  He’s also reflected on the big important questions of life.  Here’s what he wrote in one place on the meaning of our lives:

We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because comets struck the earth and wiped out dinosaurs, thereby giving mammals a chance not otherwise available….We may yearn for a ‘higher’ answer – but none exists.  This explanation, though superficially troubling, if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating and exhilarating.  We cannot read the meaning of life passively in the facts of nature.  We must construct these answers for ourselves.

It should be obvious from that quote that Stephen Jay Gould is not a Christian.  Rather than believing what the Bible says about the origin of the world, Gould holds to the theory of evolution.  He believes that man has descended from fishes and primates and so on.  But more than that, he also believes that there is no meaning to human life apart from the meaning that we make for ourselves.  Sadly, this is a common way of thinking.

Nevertheless, it forces us to think about these questions for ourselves.  Why are we here?  What does give our lives meaning and purpose?  Do we construct our own meaning?  These are questions that we need to reflect on with an open Bible.  God’s Word gives us the authoritative answers to these questions.  In the Bible, we don’t find theories, we find truth.  In the Bible we find the revelation of who our God is.

The Bible reveals to us that God is almighty.  This almighty God is also our faithful Father through Jesus Christ and because of the gospel.  When we understand those biblical teachings, then we also more clearly understand how our lives have direction, meaning and purpose.  Our lives, and indeed the lives of all humans who’ve ever lived and ever will live, take on significant significance when viewed through the lens of these truths.

Click here to continue reading this sermon based on the scriptural truths of Lord’s Day 9 of the Heidelberg Catechism.

Meanwhile…elsewhere

Dr. John Byl has been blogging quite regularly as of late and has made some helpful contributions to the debate over whether theistic evolution should be tolerated in the Canadian Reformed Churches.  One of the central issues is hermeneutics.  The latitudinarians argue that, historically, Calvin spoke of accommodation in Scripture and it’s accommodation that we see in Genesis 1 and 2.  In other words, God uses words that people can understand according to their context.  People in another context thousands of years later have to reckon with this accommodation in their biblical interpretation.  You can find Dr. Byl’s discussion of this subject here.

Similar debates have been taking place in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in connection with their school, Erskine College and Seminary.  There too, biblical inerrancy has been questioned in an effort to make room for a variety of views on origins.  Rick Phillips at Reformation 21 recently commented on this.

We have more of the same taking place at Reformed Theological Seminary and in the Presbyterian Church of America.  Bruce Waltke recently resigned from RTS because of his position on origins and the nature and authority of Scripture.  Dr. Mark Jones is  the pastor of Faith PCA in Vancouver, BC, and he recently blogged on Waltke’s views.  He says, “As this post will make clear, Waltke has endorsed the work of Francis Collins, and by doing so has committed himself to an understanding of evolution that simply is not compatible with the Christian faith.”  Read the whole thing here.   In a follow-up blog post, Jones continues to interact with Waltke’s views.  He also takes on the familiar line about Warfield and evolution.  His conclusion?  “Warfield did not affirm Darwinian evolution.  In an article yet to be published by Fred Zaspel he makes a convincing argument to this effect, which I am in general agreement with in my own book on this subject.”  You can read this post here.

This morning I noticed that the latest issue of Modern Reformation has an article by a group of PCA geologists arguing for an old earth.  You see, this issue is becoming hot all over.

The Creation Question Revisited

In late 1992 I was just beginning my writing “career.”  I was still living at home with my parents and our family didn’t yet have a computer, so whatever I was writing was on an old electric typewriter.  One of the first articles that I had published was entitled “The Creation Question.”  It was published in the January 1993 issue of the Canadian Reformed young people’s magazine In Holy Array.  In that article I stated, “Theistic evolution is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  It attempts to make a compromise between scriptural truth and so-called scientific fact.”  I noted the situation in Grand Rapids at the time: “Professors at Calvin College subscribe to the Three Forms of Unity as well as the Ecumenical Creeds, but yet they continue to teach and promote theistic evolution.”  One of those professors, Howard J. Van Till, was quoted as saying, “Creation and evolution are not contradictory…”  I never would have guessed that in less than 20 years we would be battling theistic evolution in the Canadian Reformed churches.  If you had said 40 or 50 years I might have believed you.  But less than 20?

The battle is over whether there should be room for theistic evolution.  Those who say that there should be are what I have termed “latitudinarians.”  That means that they are agitating for latitude and toleration for these views, even if, as they say, they don’t personally hold to them themselves.  It’s sort of like the “pro-choice” movement.  “Personally, we might never choose abortion for ourselves, but we believe that people should be free to choose and hold whatever position they wish.  But abortion should be an option.”  Just insert “theistic evolution” wherever you read “abortion” and that’s what we’re hearing.  [UPDATE:  to be clear, I'm not saying that those trying to make room for theistic evolution in my context are also loose on abortion.  Rather, my point is that the rhetorical strategy is similar.  However, there have been other contexts where the issues fall together.]  Interestingly, the United Reformed Churches have unequivocally stated (in 2001) that there is no room for theistic evolution in their church federation.  In other words, they’re not “pro-choice” when it comes to this issue.  We should follow their lead.

The latitudinarians tell us that the real enemy is not evolution, but evolutionism.  Scientifically and philosophically naive theologians and ministers constantly confuse these two, apparently.  What the latitudinarians are calling “evolutionism” is normally known as naturalism or materialism.  It is an unbelieving worldview which includes the theory of evolution as an explanation of origins.  Of course, we stand against naturalism/materialism.  We would expect all Reformed confessors to do that.  But our beef is also with the theory of evolution.  We need to stand against naturalism/materialism AND the theory of evolution.  Don’t let this evolution/evolutionism talk fool you.  It’s a false dilemma that confuses the issue.  Both are unbiblical.  There should be room for neither in our Reformed churches.

Finally, in the latest issue of Clarion there’s a letter to the editor chiding ministers and theology professors for giving guidance on scientific questions for which they have no qualifications to answer.  We’re hypocritical for challenging science on some issues, while making use of scientific advances and insights in our daily life.  When we need to get financial advice, we go to accountants and financial advisors.  When we need scientific insights, we should go to the scientists.  The logic sounds impeccable.  However, there is a fallacy.  It’s called equivocation.  Equivocation is changing the meaning of a word or a term in the course of an argument.  In this instance, the term equivocated is “science.”  In one instance, science refers to operational science.  In operational science, observation and experimentation lead to certain advances in knowledge and technology.  In another instance in this argument, science refers to origins or historical science.  This refers to what happened in the distant past, attempting to piece together the evidence to explain what we observe.  The Word of God directly and authoritatively addresses the question of origins.  Ministers and theology professors are trained to interpret, explain and apply the Word of God.  Thus they are qualified to address the question of origins.  That is a valid and sound argument.