In the first posted white paper from our November workshop "In Search of a Theology of Celebration", theologian Bruce Waltke presents eleven barriers for accepting creation through evolutionary means, as identified by evangelicals. Now in the second of the seven white papers -- posted yesterday in our Scholarly Essays section -- historian Mark Noll looks at the historical background of fifteen "attitudes, assumptions, and convictions" that lead modern evangelicals to actively combat modern science, and explains how the assumptions rose to prominence.
Noll divides these specific beliefs into several categories:
- Assumptions about metaphysical univocity, harmonization, natural theology, and the locus of problems when science and religion seem to clash.
- Convictions about the truth-telling character of the Bible.
- Attitudes or assumptions about the necessity of interpreting the Scriptures literally.
- The dangers of the modern research university.
- Belief that the public at large is the presumed best judge in issues of religion.
Throughout the essay, Noll carefully traces the emergence of these beliefs. He begins in the late 13th century with the work of Dun Scotus, a young contemporary of Aquinas who proposed that God's actions towards humans can be understood by humans, and William of Ockham, whose famous "razor" deemed the simplest explanations of phenomena to be the best. Together, their work led to a general acceptance that once something can be explained as a natural occurrence, it cannot also be described in another realm.
Noll then continues through the birth and growth of the United States, tracing the unique interactions of democracy, freedom of religion, and a desire to shed the religious traditions of Europe, which led to many new assumptions about the proper relationship between religion, reason, tradition, and scripture. Noll also looks at the effects of the Civil War and World Wars I and II, as well as the rise of the belief that universities were "enemy territory" for evangelical Christianity. He ends with a look at the modern culture war of the evolution/creation dialogue.
Ultimately, it is this detailed historical analysis that allows Noll to accomplish what he sets out to do in the paper: to make it clear that "when conservative Protestants voice objections to different aspects of modern science, they do so for a complex set of well-established reasons", and that "progress on this front probably depends most on increasing the number and quality of believing Christians who are willing to enter the world of university level science with commitments to historical Christianity and the modern practice of science firmly in place."
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Ah. I see where you got it. Even less deeply hidden than I thought!
Dear, dear, the post with the most interesting content (if you click on the link and read the essay) of any since I've been commenting here, and no-one except dopderbeck and me have made any reference to it. Anyone have any comment on what either of us said, or anything else related to the essay? (No, not you, Mere_Halfwit, Noddy in Toyland is more your intellectual level.) Another couple of aspects I'd like to have seen explored with respect to the recent past:
1) The rise of the "Rapture" industry, including the extraordinary sales of tripe such as the "Left Behind" series (an almost purely US phenomenon, and not because readers elsewhere don't want tripe - they just don't want that sort of tripe); and
2) The growth of increasingly wacky conspiracy theories on the religious right. Linked to (1) of course, and not exclusive to the religious right, but both most hilarious and most alarming there: UN black helicopters, the NAU and the amero, Obama the commie Kenyan Muslin atheist Antichrist, etc., etc., etc.
Sorry, pds also referred to it.
KG -- I think you're correct to link the trends Noll mentions to the "Rapture" industry. The same supposedly "common sense" reading of the Bible that leads to young earth creationism tends to lead to the extremes of some dispensational premillennial interpretations. And I think you're also correct to tie these things together into the conspiracy theory mindset. It's a very unfortunate sub-culture worldview of suspicion / withdrawal / attack the remains pervasive in North American popular evangelicalism, and that feeds on and feeds into our equally unfortunately tabloid talk radio / Fox News culture. I'm very grateful that folks such as Noll have been doing the patient historical spadework needed to help us evangelicals to understand these trends and to try to correct them.
Dopderbeck,
Looking at the essay again, Noll himself briefly links literalism w.r.t. Genesis to the same w.r.t. revelation. Another interesting point, though beyond the scope of the essay, is that young-Earth creationism has spread into Judaism and Islam - religious fundamentalisms, at least within the Abrahamic religions, have deep similarities. But the fundamentalists are right in their conviction that critical reason and "revelation" are irreconcilable - and it's clear to me from your own words that you, and the BioLogos crew, will always put your religious loyalties first. That's what any True Christian@trade must do, and that's why I oppose Christianity root and branch.
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