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AR 25:7 - Assuming omniscience is needed to interpret Scripture
In this issue:
BIBLE INTERPRETATION - "You cannot know for certain" what to believe about Scripture: D.A. Carson responds
CENSORSHIP - Is Google suppressing scholarly criticism of its controversial 1619 Project?
SURVIVALISM - many on the Left are dropping off the grid
Apologia Report 25:7 (1,464)
February 19, 2020
BIBLE INTERPRETATION
An update from D.A. Carson on contagious Scripture-twisting: "But That's Just Your Interpretation!" (Themelios 44:3 - 2019) -- Carson reflects on "Demas," a former student, who has rebelled against his conservative background arguing that "We cannot know for certain:
1) "that your reading of the Bible is right ...
2) "which ancient books are actually God Almighty's eternal Word ...
3) "how God wanted us to use these books"
Carson responds that at first, Demas' argument "seems to be that if you do not know something 'for 100% sure,' then you do not truly know it. In other words, you must possess omniscient knowledge....
"[I]t is deceptive to set up omniscience as the necessary criterion for 'certain' or 'sure' knowledge, and this for at least four reasons:
1) "We commonly speak of human knowing without making omniscience the criterion of true knowing"
2) "If Demas's arguments are valid ... then to be consistent we must adopt the same agnostic position on everything.... For example, Christians hold that Jesus is truly to be confessed and worshiped as God. But the deity of Christ is denied by Arians old and new, including Jehovah's Witnesses: one cannot say that there is universal agreement that this is what the Bible teaches. Must we therefore say that because we don't know 'for sure' what the Bible says about these things, therefore we should leave the matter open?"
3) "Believing in the Bible, Demas asserts, 'is an act of faith.' True enough. It appears, however, that Demas pits faith over against knowing. If I understand him correctly, his argument is as follows: You may believe that the Bible says such-and-such about LGBTQ+ issues, but you cannot know 'for 100% sure,' and therefore you are not warranted to pronounce that LGBTQ+ behavior is disapproved by God. This, however, buys into not only a misguided view of knowledge, but also contemporary secular definitions of 'faith.' ...
4) "One cannot help but ask how Demas knows that God is a loving God. ... To be consistent, shouldn't he say that we cannot know 'for 100% sure' that God is good? Isn't he making ethical decisions on the basis of what (his own logic must tell him) he cannot know?
"It appears, then, that Demas has succumbed to the categories of this present evil world to arrive at, or at least support, his conclusions. Essentially, Demas is undermining the clarity and the authority of Scripture on the ground that we cannot truly know what Scripture is saying because we don't enjoy omniscient knowledge....
"Second, ... he also claims no one else may legitimately claim that they know (which is a dogmatic declaration of their ignorance). This is 'imperious ignorance' - that is, an imperial declaration that they must be ignorant whether or not they admit it. ...
"Third, we should be careful to sniff out publishing ploys that seem designed to introduce new waves of uncertainty. Consider a recent book edited by Preston Sprinkle, titled Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church [1]. ... Sprinkle's book, published by an evangelical publisher, now makes the debate about the legitimacy of homosexual practice an intra-evangelical matter. The advertising for the book maintains that both sides argue their case 'from Scripture' - though of course, Jehovah's Witnesses argue their case 'from Scripture,' too. The point is that if there is such a thing as orthodoxy, then not all disputed things are properly disputable. ...
"Fourth, [watch for] the nature of some postmodern epistemologies that, though now rarely teased out, are very widely assumed. ... [M]any still think in transparently postmodern ways, even though their grasp of underlying theory is relatively thin. [Resulting in] some postmodern hermeneutical reasons, for justifying the skeptical charge, 'But that's just your interpretation.' ...
"When enough people absorb the interpretations that postmodernism has authorized, it is easy for a traditional Christian to feel excluded."
In response, Carson makes several points, with the first two standing out in particular: 1) "It is important to avoid a response that is needlessly polarizing," and 2) "[I]t does not follow that all interpretations are equally valid, or invalid."
Last, the "special character of the Word of God, in which the omniscient God stands behind it, however faulty our interpretive efforts of it, calls us to humility and godly fear whenever we engage the sacred text. God declares, 'These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word' (Isa 66:2). For our purposes, there are two lessons to be drawn from this assertion. ...
1) "God loathes all forms of religion that are largely for show"
2) "This stance also grants the interpreter a certain kind of humble boldness" - the ultimate challenge being simply to consider who is speaking. Does the offense originate from what *we* say, "or from what God says in Scripture?" <www.bit.ly/31TK33Y>
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CENSORSHIP
Just in case you're inclined to think that conservatives are the only folks wary of Google's search-result manipulation, try this on for size: "Google suppressing World Socialist Web Site content in its search results for the New York Times’ 1619 Project" by Kevin Reed -- opens: "Based on current search results and other web site analytics, it is clear that Google is manipulating its search algorithm to suppress the popular, original and authoritative content published by the World Socialist Web Site [WSWS] on the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project. <www.nyti.ms/2uf228L>
"Starting on September 3, the WSWS began publishing a series of statements and articles <www.bit.ly/32eQZZB> in response to the 1619 Project. ...
"By mid-December, responding to the considerable public interest in the issues raised by the WSWS, major corporate news organizations such as the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, National Review and the Daily Signal published their own articles about the opposition of the historians and the WSWS to the 1619 Project.
"In most cases, these publications cited the World Socialist Web Site as the first to oppose the racialist historical narrative published by the New York Times. ...
"However, despite the growing online audience for the WSWS - including a large number of backlinks to its pages - a basic Google search of “The 1619 Project” or “1619 Project” does not serve any WSWS pages within its top results. Far from it....
"It is also a well-known fact among Internet tech experts that the top five positions in Google’s organic (nonpaid) search results receive 75 percent of referral traffic and the first page of results (top ten positions) gets 92 percent of all referrals. This means that all subsequent pages of search result listings beyond the first page share the remaining 8 percent of referrals and so their site traffic is severely diminished.
"The low ranking of WSWS 1619 Project content on Google searches—zero on page one, very few on page two and the majority on page three or more—is on its face evidence of search algorithm manipulation. ...
"The suppression by Google of referrals to the WSWS is borne out by the data. According to our referral analytics dashboard, visitors searching the internet for the keywords “1619 Project” were directed to the WSWS by Microsoft’s Bing search engine 12 times more than those referred to the site by Google." <www.bit.ly/31XjV8r>
This item was of particular interest because of access restrictions that Apologia has experienced <www.bit.ly/2OTlM8M> with its Google-hosted AR-talk database (part of the Apologia Archive <j.mp/ar-chive>). After doing our own testing, we haven't turned up any obvious related concerns.
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SURVIVALISM
Did you know that progressives have their own version of the survivalist movement? While it's doubtful that they would characterize themselves this way, the parallels are interesting. In "The New Generation of Self-Created Utopias" (New York Times, Jan 16 '20) Mike Mariani reports: "As so-called intentional communities proliferate across the country, a subset of Americans is discovering the value of opting out of contemporary society."
After lengthy background and historical detail, Mariani finds: "Though many residents of intentional communities are undoubtedly frustrated by climate inaction and mounting economic inequality, others are joining primarily to form stronger social bonds. According to a study published last year by researchers <www.bit.ly/37MgOkN> at the University of California San Diego, more than three-quarters of American adults now experience moderate to high levels of loneliness - rates that have more than doubled over the last 50 years." <www.nyti.ms/31VNGGv>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church, Preston Sprinkle, ed. (Zondervan, 2016, paperback, 240 pages) <www.amzn.to/38tD5oF>
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