07AR12-39

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Apologia Report 12:39

October 26, 2007

Subject: Today's bestselling sociologist is pro-Intelligent Design

In this issue:

NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM - new analysis of Bart Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, Marcus Borg and James Tabor demonstrates how they fall short

ORIGINS - review of Darwin's Nemesis includes interesting criticisms and observations

RELIGION, GENERAL - Rodney Stark's latest, Discovering God, strongly endorses Intelligent Design

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NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM

Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture's Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ, by Darrell L. Bock and Daniel B. Wallace [2] -- "Ph.D.s and writers Bock (Jesus According to Scripture [3]) and Wallace (author of one of the most widely used textbooks on New Testament Greek grammar [4]) team up to address what they refer to as JesusanityÑthe trend to dethrone Jesus and view him as a wise and revered leader rather than as the Christ of Christianity. They examine the ideas of numerous scholars and theorists, including Bart Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, Marcus Borg and James Tabor. With precision and care drawn from their years of research, they study six key claimsÑincluding the idea that the original New Testament manuscripts were corrupted beyond recovery, that Jesus' message was primarily political, that new gospels like Thomas and Judas throw traditional views of Jesus into doubt and that Jesus' tomb has been discovered. What emerges is an appreciation for the rigors of biblical study and a wealth of support for traditional views of Jesus. The writing is at times unclear and difficult, and could not compete on its own with [that of] the books Bock and Wallace critique. However, this overview provides a concise and well-researched evangelical Christian response to numerous popular theories, and conservative readers will be especially likely to welcome it." Publishers Weekly, Sep 10 '07, pp54-55.

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ORIGINS

Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement, William Dembski, ed. [5] -- reviewer Mark Koonz notes that "The contributions to this festschrift in honor of Phillip Johnson are diverse, yet each relates in some way to the Intelligent Design (ID) movement."

Of the numerous contributions discussed, several stand out. "J. Budziszewski provides a stringent critique of Larry Arnhart's effort to establish moral law on a naturalistic basis. An atheistic worldview cannot provide any concept of right and wrong which must be universally acknowledged and respected. Budziszewski's writing is as clear as his logic is sound.

"ASA [American Scientific Affiliation, theistic evolutionist publisher of this journal] member William Dembski discusses the backlash against ID, and provides some interesting comments on theistic evolutionists, among whom must be numbered some vocal opponents of ID. Dembski notes: 'Theistic evolutionists have now become marvelously adept at rationalizing not only how their religious faith makes sense in the light of evolution but also how evolution enhances their religious faith. Let's not play this game. The issue for us is not how evolution relates to religious faith but whether evolution as currently understood by science, is true. If, as we argue, it is not true, then exploring its religious ramifications constitutes a vain exercise.'

"Stephen Meyer's article on the origin of biological information and the Cambrian explosion is reprinted here. It first appeared in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington [1], after it went successfully through the peer-review process. The editor, who has two earned doctorates and a position at the Smithsonian, was harassed and fired for publishing it. He 'continues to face great persecution.' There is no fair play when critics serve as gatekeepers forbidding ID contributions while they simultaneously claim ID is not supported in peer-review journals.

"ASA Fellow Walter Bradley ... provides the interesting observation that the ID 'beachhead is greatest in physics and least in biology.' He claims that the field of physics is more open to the new ideas. ...

"I recommend this book both to friends and critics of ID." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Sep '07, pp233-234.

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RELIGION, GENERAL

Discovering God: A New Look at the Origins of the Great Religions, by today's bestselling sociologist, Rodney Stark [6] -- reviewer Bryce Christensen reports that, in contrast to the criticism of atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, "Only a believer, Stark asserts, can fathom the origins and subsequent unfolding of the world's great faiths. In this wide-ranging investigation, Stark detects sacred reality - not pious deception - at the heart of transcendent beliefs shared by Aborigines and Anglicans. In their myths of the high gods, Stark contends, early tribal peoples glimpsed divine truths obscured in later civilizations when pharaohs and emperors lent government support to temple priesthoods more interested in maintaining a comfortable lifestyle than in serving God. The eventual emergence of a religious marketplace in ancient Rome opened a wide range of metaphysical options. Yet in a culture of religious pluralism, the insistent claims of tightly knit communities of Jews and Christians appeared threatening to Roman leaders, who defended the status quo by persecuting adherents to these unsettlingly intense faiths. Yet it is in these revelatory faiths - and not the meditative religions of Eastern Asia - that Stark discerns the fullest manifestation of God. Some readers will resist Stark's comparative judgments; others will dispute his religious interpretation of modern science. But serious students of religion will recognize this as an essential sourcebook." Booklist, Sep 1 '07, p20.

Christensen's reference to Stark's "religious interpretation of modern science" is tied to the conclusion of the book. Here Stark writes that "quite aside from any and all traditional religious claims, there are objective grounds for accepting the existence of God as the more rational conclusion. ...

"It was only because they believed in God as the Intelligent Designer of a rational universe that Europeans pursued the secrets of the Creation: Newton, Kepler, Galileo, and all the other stalwarts of the extraordinary flowering of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries regarded the creation itself as a *book* that was to be read and comprehended. ... Moreover, these great scientists not only searched for natural laws, confident that they existed, but *they found them!*

"Again and again, science has revealed that the universe and all that it contains is not only immensely complex, but is utterly lawful. And that is the essential point, for as Albert Einstein (1879-1955) once remarked, the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible: '*a prioi* one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way.' He went on to note that scientific theories assume 'a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected *a priori.*' ... And that is the 'miracle' that has prompted the recent renaissance of arguments in support of Intelligent Design.

"The new supporters of Intelligent Design are very sophisticated, some of them having distinguished scientific careers. Their case for design rests on two primary points. First, the infinitesimal variations in any of the basic features of the universe, such as Planck's constant, the speed of light, the gravity force constant, and the like, would produce the chaos that Einstein mentioned. The odds against all of these taking their present values by sheer accident seem far more than prohibitive. Second, many basic building blocks of life cannot have arisen helter-skelter, one tiny increment at a time. ...

"Finally, there is an even more basic and fundamental 'proof' of Intelligent Design. ... It seems to me that the most remarkable 'retreat' from reason is to cling to the belief that the principles that underlie the universe came out of nowhere, that everything is one big, meaningless accident.

"I am no longer sufficiently arrogant or gullible to make that leap of faith. I find it far more rational to regard the universe itself as the ultimate revelation of God and to agree with Kepler that in the most fundamental sense, science *is* theology and thereby serves as another method for the discovery of God."

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Sources, Digital:

1 - <http://tinyurl.com/5n3kh>

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Sources, Monographs:

2 - Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture's Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ, by Darrell L. Bock and Daniel B. Wallace (Thomas Nelson, hardcover, Nov 6 '07, 256 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/078522615X/apologiareport>

3 - Jesus According to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels, by Darrell L. Bock (Baker, 2007, paperback, 704 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/080103308X/apologiareport>

4 - New Testament Syntax: Companion to Basics of New Testament Syntax and Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New

Testament by Daniel B. Wallace and Grant C. Edwards (Kregel, 2006, paperback, 350 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/082542982X/apologiareport>

5 - Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement, William Dembski, ed. (IVP, 2006, paperback, 357 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0830828362/apologiareport>

6 - Discovering God: A New Look at the Origins of the Great Religions, by Rodney Stark (HarperOne, 2007, hardcover: 496 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061173894/apologiareport>

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