Today I want to go where angels fear to tread. This is prompted mainly by Jerry Coyne’s recent foray in the strange world of the Biologos Forum, which has, as its mission statement: “The BioLogos Foundation explores, promotes and celebrates the integration of science and Christian faith.” Not relate, notice, but integrate, which means, I take it, to combine into a whole. So Biologos intends to take science and religion — and specifically the Christian religion — and to relate them as parts of a single whole.
What reasonable expectation is there that they can do that? The answer to that question is, fairly self-evidently, none. It may be possible to play around with biblical stories and the religious doctrines derived from them, and interpret them in ways that make them less conflicting with science, but not only are science and religion completely different cultural undertakings, religion cannot, except by way of courtesy, be considered a discipline of knowledge at all, and to integrate science and religion requires that they be, in some sense, about the same things, and have, at least, analogous types of confirmation.
But there is simply no error theory for theological propositions, except by way of authoritative pronouncements. Authority, however, cannot establish truth. It can only define what will be regarded, for whatever purpose, as truth. This is clear from the Roman Catholic description of what it calls the Magisterium, or teaching authority of the church. The theologian’s task, from this point of view, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, puts it, is
… to give a correct interpretation to the texts of the Magisterium and to this end he employs various hermeneutical rules. Among these is the principle which affirms that Magisterial teaching, by virtue of divine assistance, has a validity beyond its argumentation. [section 34, my emphasis]
Dennis Alexander — the proximate object of Jerry Coyne’s withering criticism — must do essentially the same thing regarding what he calls the issues that are central to the Gospel. But this is clearly not an error theory. It merely prescribes, beforehand, what will be considered an error.
Take the example of the biblical story of creation, and in particular the Adam and Eve story, which is the immediate object of Jerry Coyne’s criticism in the post linked above. He points out how Biologos seems to be obsessed with Adam and Eve, when it need not be. Why should Biologos be so devoted to something which must be a continuing source of frustration? As he says:
The obvious thing to do, if you were a smart but committed Christian, would be to regard this story as some kind of metaphor, as many liberal Christians do, and find some metaphorical reason why our species is cursed with sin.
But Biologos can’t do that. Why? Well, for the simple reason that in the kind of simplistic understanding of Christianity that Biologos takes as normative, Adam and Eve are of central importance. Besides, a fairly conservative form of Protestant Christianity — even Calvinism, if Alexander’s “white paper” (see below) is anything to go by — seems to inform Biologos’ theological paradigm. Adam and Eve’s historical existence (in some sense) is central to the whole drama of salvation that consists in God’s election of a people, his promise of a redeemer, it’s fulfilment in Jesus’ ministry, which culminates in his sacrificial crucifixion, and subsequent triumph over sin and death in his resurrection. Without Adam and Eve and their disobedience Jesus would be just another Jew killed by the Romans, regrettable, as all such senseless deaths no doubt are, but of no cosmic significance.
Biologos might, as Jerry Coyne points out, merely treat the story of Adam and Eve as metaphor, as many liberal Christians have done for many years. Why is this not a good solution? Well, for the simple reason that, if it is “only” a metaphor, how is it to be integrated with science?
Now, behold how it is done. We even have a “white paper” on the subject by the molecular biologist Denis Alexander! The terminology of “white papers”, like the use of the terms “data-sets” and “models”, which Alexander salts throughout his “white paper”, is all a part of an elaborate charade. When we come to consider the “data-sets” and “models” that are supposed to help us mesh biblical theology with genetics and anthropology, it turns out that the only work these terms are doing is to mislead us. Instead of grand unifying theory, we have grand unifying pretence.
For example, Alexander ends his “white paper” with the claim that
In relating anthropology to Biblical teaching we are in a much stronger position than that [than science itself, which sometimes must acknowledge that there is no coherent theory for apparently conflicting data-sets], since the models proffered go at least some way towards rendering the two data-sets mutually coherent. (9)
The reference to the two data-sets is entirely delusional. There is one data-set, the scientific findings of genetics and anthropology about the evolution of Homo sapiens, and its subsequent migration from Africa to populate the world, and then one story, sifted out historically from a great many origin stories, the one that has come down to us in the biblical text which is deemed sacred by Christians and Jews. In what sense can this story be considered a data-set? That it has been privileged by religious believers whose religion survived while others did not, scarcely gives it, in any reasonable sense, probative value regarding the nature of the world or the significance of human beings.
So when Alexander begins his “white paper” — it’s hard not to laugh derisively when typing those words — by saying that
Theological truths revealed in Scripture are eternal infallible truths, valid for the whole of humanity for all time, although human interpretations of Scripture are not infallible and may change with time over issues that are not central to the Gospel, (1)
he is merely making marks on paper, not saying anything. He wants there to be a “data-set” of theological truths, so he simply dragoons the Bible into providing one. But there are so many unsettled questions here, at the very beginning, that make it simply impossible for him to go on, if his aim is to say something coherent.
This is a foundational claim. Alexander holds that:
(i) one book, the Bible — which, it is important to add, has come down to us as a redaction of many texts, by whom, in what context, and for what original purpose it is now impossible to discern – is the source of eternal infallible truths revealed by a god, such that they are
(ii) valid for humanity for all time regarding issues central to the Gospel, and yet, at the same time,
(iii) hermeneutically labile in respect of issues which are not central to the Gospel.
All of which makes it evident that this is not a foundation at all, for the simple reason that “issues central to the Gospel” can only be distinguished from those not central by privileging and fixing some interpretations while letting others float in the free market of hermeneutic. But this is a hermeneutic fiction, for, as hermeneutic, it must be as fallible as other hermeneutic moves in the religious game. Therefore, the Bible cannot provide us with any truths which are eternal and infallible, “valid for the whole of humanity for all time.”
There is simply no reason, as Jerry Coyne points out, why the Adam and Eve story must be understood in a quasi-literal way, and then to wonder what “model” will best integrate that story with the findings of genetics and anthropology. Nor is there any reason to take the so-called Fall, or what Alexander calls, in a footnote (fn 10), “How sin began,” as in any sense descriptive of an historical event. It is true that, if it is not an historical event, then the whole premise of incarnational theology rests on a mistake, as the Anglican theologian Maurice Wiles thought it did.
But this just shows how open to interpretation and reinterpretation the biblical stories are — even those that are central to what Alexander thinks of as the Gospel. So there is no way that we can provide a “data-set” on the religious side of the proposed integration of science with religion that is in any way coordinate with the data-sets that are the very stuff of science. Nor is there any way to settle the question of which interpretation is the right one regarding the biblical stories, though, in the case of science, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding, that is, in how things actually turn out. So a “model” for a theological “truth” is no more than a proposed interpretation of biblical texts considered as revealed by a god. And this is simply not enough to be going forward with, and even Denis Alexander must — at least one hopes that there is this much rationality left, despite its manifold deformations through the alembic of the Bible — know this even as he tries to fit the many shapes of religion into a mould that remains steadfastly obdurate.
I have not considered the “arguments” of Alexander’s “white paper”. The reason is simply that they are strictly irrelevant. Alexander’s model cannot work in theological terms. He takes the “Homo divinus model” as the best interpretation. Adam and Eve were paleolithic farmers specially chosen by God, who then, having known God, turn deliberately away, and bring down, by a process of social contamination, a pall of sin over the whole of humankind. It’s embarrassing even to write the words!
There are hosts of problems here, but, from the biblical standpoint alone it is untenable. For it supposes that Adam and Eve (however understood) are the founding pair of the chosen people. But, biblically, this is simply wrong. In the Bible “man” sins in Adam, and then, later, God chooses Abraham to found the chosen people in order to redeem sinful humankind from sin and death.
And this is only the Christian understanding of the story, for Jewish interpretation of the story of the so-called Fall (as Christians understand it) is something completely different, and it is not obvious why Alexander does not give Jewish interpretation some weight in his “model”. Well, of course, because Biologos is about integrating Christianity with science. That, however, is not an answer. It’s a prejudice. It just shows how unscientific the whole procedure really is. Alexander contrives to make Adam and Eve play a role in the drama of salvation that the Bible does not give them. Hermeneutics cannot simply rewrite the story. This much of an error theory biblical theology does provide. So the “white paper” is simply obfuscating confabulation to satisfy already held beliefs. It provides no knowledge at all, and the purported relation to science is even sillier than it need have been.
I enjoyed reading you analysis, as I had enjoyed reading Jerry Coyne’s posts.
I particularly like the way you summed it up:
Denis Alexander, like everyone at BioLogos, is committed to guiding evangelical Christians away from Biblical inerrancy, which they see as contributing to the loss of educated young adults from the faith. Apparently, they’re concerned that too much metaphor would just be too much at this point, and so they end up composing ridiculous stories like this one, in which a couple of people enter into a relationship with God for the sole purpose of having all of humanity condemned.
I confess to finding it difficult to be infuriated with BioLogos; I leave that to Al Mohler. I realize how silly they can be, but, whether they acknowledge it or not, they’re pulling in the right direction.
But he doesn’t quite succeed, does he? After all, while interpetations may vary, the underlying ‘word’ is infallible, and there are certain interpretations (those that are central to the gospel) that are privileged, and are true always, everywhere and for all.
Biologos doesn’t infuriate me, it simply leaves me puzzled. How can apparently intelligent people believe this stuff? And what could lead Alexander to think that his amateur theologising is important? Luring people away from the Scylla of inerrancy is one thing, smashing them on the Charybdis of theological infallibility, is quite another, and I simply cannot understand why anyone should think that one is any better than the other.
Rick Warren wrote somewhere that he once thought that evolution and Christianity were not in conflict, but was shown that indeed they were. At first I guessed that this line of thinking derived from the early teachings, Augustine or some such, but of course an evangelical isn’t bound by anything but the scriptures themselves.
It comes down to Paul in Romans: “It was through one man that sin entered the world, and through sin death”. A literal reading is demanded by a great many denominations. That it is flatly incompatible with the revelations of nature is beside the point. Who are you going to believe, the Holy Book or your own lying eyes?
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Eric,
Great piece as usual.
Here is an interesting description regarding the Jewish conception of Adam. The Article is long and very informative, at least to me.
Interesting, too, is the last paragraph of the piece which begins with
Kashov,
What is there to integrate, if your view is correct? Why bring up an allegorical Adam and Eve and try to connect it to anthropology and genetics? A story from some backcountry tribe is considered worthy of integration into science – what could it possibly add to our understanding? Wouldn’t we better off studying African creation myths; this where anatomically modern humans arose – not in the Middle East?
Someone brought up “integration” in the comments of my post and I’ve addressed it there. And to be sure, Alexander is not beyond criticism.
Ken – I share your pespective of BioLogos and their position between the rock and hardplace of science and evangelical Christianity. More than once I have suggested to the BioLogos folks that “integration” is not a good term to use in their mission statement, and Eric has provided an excellent discussion that supports my position. It seems to me that BioLogos is going to have to set a new course in the relationships between science and Christian faith, for if they try to accommodate everyone from the theological conservatives and the liberals, they will fail. They cannot be committed to current scientific understandings and theological arguments that are incompatible with such findings.
Well, Robert, I have taken the trouble to read your piece on my piece, and I still don’t see how I have misrepresented or misunderstood Christian faith, as you suggest. And, as for Denis Alexander. He does want to read the Adam and Eve story literally — perhaps not as a story of origins, but as a literal story of a literal couple who literally fell, and spread their contagion around until it included the whole of humankind. Denis’ treatment of the texts is superficial at best. And I can’t see what you have to add as a corrective to that. Besides, from the point of view of a lot of more liberal Christian theology, the idea of the Fall, as an event, has been largely avoided, and fallen nature seen as an aspect of being human. In this sense, reconciliation with God would still be required, thus giving narrative space for the incarnation/passion/resurection, without reading the Genesis story as in any sense a representation of actual historical events involving a particular couple. But in what sense have I misread the biblical evidence or misunderstood Christian faith?
I appreciate your dialogue. I’ll respond in brief to hopefully clarify a tad:
“as for Denis Alexander. He does want to read the Adam and Eve story literally — perhaps not as a story of origins, but as a literal story of a literal couple who literally fell, and spread their contagion around until it included the whole of humankind.”
Of course. After all, it is a “story.” And reading that story literally gets at the theology. But to say that it “literally” )(= historically) happened is something quite different. Even allegories (e.g. Pilgrim’s Progress) have a literal story which establishes a foundation for the actual point to be made.
“Besides, from the point of view of a lot of more liberal Christian theology, the idea of the Fall, as an event, has been largely avoided, and fallen nature seen as an aspect of being human.”
I’m not quite following your point, but I will say this: The idea of a “fall” is no where in the Old Testament. It originates with Paul and if one does not understand how midrash works (creating, bending arguments to make a point), it might be confused with propositional statements. Most all NT scholars recognize that Paul does create midrash with most of the OT in order to make the theological point (which is what Christians consider dogma [not the midrash]).
Best,
Rob
Rob. No, no, no. Alexander does read it as historical. The couple actually existed and God actually chose them, in his view. Read Alexander’s piece over again. This is very clear. He does not take it figuratively. Indeed, this is the ‘model’ that he rejects.
As to the idea of the Fall. It is true that it is not found in the Old Testament, and that this is a Christian gloss on the story, but the gloss was vital to the Western understanding, anyway, of the atonement, and it is not clear to me that the theology of the atonement works without this gloss, whether it comes from Paul, or is evident as well in the gospels, or not. You can consider Paul’s point midrash, if you like, but this doesn’t diminish the force of it. And if he has to torture the OT text in order to produce his own interpretation — and one, I think, need not suppose that he tortures it very much — he still needs this, not only as a theological premise, but as an historical premise, if there is anything for Christ to do. You can’t premise the need for redemption on a midrash. And if you do, then you have turned the whole thing into story, and, while that is certainly a way in which we might want to go, it is not, in my understanding, the direction in which Biologos is heading.
Of course, what you can do is turn the whole thing into myth, and this is precisely what theologians like Tillich did. In that sense you can live within the myth if you find it meaningful. What can I say? You can jump either way on this. But it is clear that Alexander is not thinking of it in terms of myth, even in its technical sense, as he suggests, but in terms of an actual historical event that happened to a chosen couple, and who, thereby, infected the rest of humankind. But if you’re going to turn it into myth, and then break the myth, a live within it consciously as story, then you have to say this straight out, and Alexander certainly doesn’t do that.
The need for a literal Adam and Eve is the core foundation of the Christian faith, that is why they defend it so fervently. To treat the story as a metaphor or consider it purely allegorical defeats the whole theological perspective. Pure and simple. No Adam and Eve, no original sin. No original sin, no need for redemption. No need for redemption, no need for a redeemer. No need for a redeemer, no need for Jesus.
I would say that Alexander — incidentally, I mentioned over on my blog (in the comments) that he is not beyond critique — takes a quasi-historical account on Genesis. Take for example the following affirmations he makes:
“We can all agree that the early chapters of Genesis exist to convey theology and not science. The task of models is then to explore how the theological truths of Genesis might relate to our current scientific understanding of human origins.”
“Nevertheless the data are overwhelmingly supportive of certain scientific truths, for example that we share a common genetic inheritance with the apes.”
One cannot believe in evolution (as he does) and take an historical view: creation in 7 days, man being made from the ground, eve coming into being from Adam’s rib, etc. He affirms none of this.
Where Alexander falls short is his understanding of the NT. In this regard, he is not a good representative of where Christian scholarship is at present. One doesn’t take Paul’s midrash as dogma, but Alexander is simply trying to merge (irresponsibly) Paul and Genesis.
On this point, you say
“You can consider Paul’s point midrash, if you like, but this doesn’t diminish the force of it. And if he has to torture the OT text in order to produce his own interpretation — and one, I think, need not suppose that he tortures it very much — he still needs this, not only as a theological premise, but as an historical premise, if there is anything for Christ to do.”
I disagree. Adam does not need to be historical. Part of this is one’s interpretation of what Adam represents theological in the OT, and to uncover the answer to that question the question “When and Why was Genesis written” needs to be answered. In short, Adam is a proto-Israelite figure (Many have written on the temple imagery in Gen 1-2 and the commentary on improper sacrifice in Gen 4). The OT is written (in the post-exilic era) to show how Israel perpetually remains throughout history (extending from the earliest of ages). The covenant in Israel failed, thus a new covenant was necessary, one “in-Christ.” In Romans 5, Paul places Adam and Christ side by side for because the old covenant continuously failed and brought sin. But in Christ, entrance into a new covenant is made possible (notice the juxtaposition of Rom 6.1-11, baptism being the mode of covenantal entrace.). The theological message of Romans is fairly straightforward and can be found in any given commentary, but the point I’m making is the historicity of Adam is not required. Sure you can take Alexander’s “first model,” but even this is wanting, because the motivation behind it is to harmonize Paul with Genesis. As I see it, your taking issue with the Alexander’s “integrating” science with the Bible is not what’s going on. He’s trying to integrate Romans with Genesis, and that’s where he falls short.
Regarding biologos, you say
“You can’t premise the need for redemption on a midrash. And if you do, then you have turned the whole thing into story, and, while that is certainly a way in which we might want to go, it is not, in my understanding, the direction in which Biologos is heading.”
I think your missing the fact that biologos has not made any affirmations about where they are heading. Alexander asks from the beginning:
“what ‘Biologos model’ might best address the relationship between the Adam of Genesis and the anthropological and genetic account of a humanity that did not have a single couple as the source of its genetic endowment …”
The implication is pretty clear here, there are various models. He then gives two–but again he butchers the NT and what to do with the NT use of the OT–but concedes in his conclusion that even his model is found wanting, desiring a better model. In my view, Peter Enns has the best model, a book which is forthcoming. His book integrates Christian NT scholarship the best.
Eric
I don’t know whether you are going to have links or a blog role on your blog to other related blogs. Anyway, here is a suggestion re an atheist Biblioblog. Neil Godfrey’s Vridar. Currently No.8 out of 50 in the Biblioblog listings – quite a feat for an atheist Biblioblogger…
http://vridar.wordpress.com/
Why couldn’t Jesus just be an allegory as well? Some atheists seem to think if they show Jesus didn’t exist, then they have debunked Christianity. If Christianity can survive Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, etc as myth, why not Jesus? Aren’t the Gospels just books of stories demonstrating the God cares about us – spreading the wealth so to speak from Jews to Gentiles?
Michael Fugate wrote”
Why couldn’t Jesus just be an allegory as well? Some “atheists seem to think if they show Jesus didn’t exist, then they have debunked Christianity. If Christianity can survive Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, etc as myth, why not Jesus? Aren’t the Gospels just books of stories demonstrating the God cares about us – spreading the wealth so to speak from Jews to Gentiles?”
Sure, Christianity can reinvent itself – it is the mother of heretics afterall….(needs to drop theism though – article on the web: Christianity Minus Theism
Lloyd Geering ).
Re the Jesus issue: a very insightful quote from Albert Schweitzer – from a blog post by Neil Godfrey.
http://vridar.wordpress.com/category/book-reviews/schweitzer-quest-of-historical-jesus/
“Moreover, in the case of Jesus, the theoretical reservations are even greater because all the reports about him go back to the one source of tradition, early Christianity itself, and there are no data available in Jewish or Gentile secular history which could be used as controls. Thus the degree of certainty cannot even by raised so high as positive probability.
. . . Modern Christianity must always reckon with the possibility of having to abandon the historical figure of Jesus. Hence it must not artificially increase his importance by referring all theological knowledge to him and developing a ‘christocentric’ religion: the Lord may always be a mere element in ‘religion’, but he should never be considered its foundation.
To put it differently: religion must avail itself of a metaphysic, that is, a basic view of the nature and significance of being which is entirely independent of history and of knowledge transmitted from the past . . .”
From pages 401-402 of The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 2001, by Albert Schweitzer.
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An astounding writer and razor sharp logician. He strips away the pretense of the theological card tricks of BioLogos and truly demonstrates how poor their logic is.
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