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Factual Accuracy in the Bible

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  • minasolimanminasoliman
    You wrote:

    However my main argument is that evolution is not real and there is so much more evidence supporting the bible and refuting evolution than there is that is supporting evolution, but there is still so many people accepting it as fact.

    I have to respectfully disagree.  If you are willing, I would recommend some reading, but all in all, a decent science education in my opinion would be enough to refute this.  The fact of the matter is evolution is a fact, whether we believe it or not.  Thanks to genetics, if we deny it due to religious reasons, we turn God into a charlatan.

    We need to realize also the Bible was not made a science book.  The Bible is not the Quran.  It's not a magic book.  It's been inspired by Holy Spirit to help give revelation about the gospel of Jesus Christ, not about scientific or historical pre-Christ accuracy.  I recommend reading Origen's "Philocalia", which elucidates the way in which the ancient Alexandrian church studied exegesis.
  • Faithfull Servant 1
    edited June 2014
    I would like you to please clarify what you mean by evolution, as I know that micro-evolution is completely probable and has and still is occurring now. 
    The problem I have is the evolution of microbe to man and also the other "facts" that this study of life brings along with it such as the age of the earth. If you would like, there is a couple great books written by scientists with PhDs on this subject, among them is "Refuting Evolution" and "Dismantling the Big Bang." Both of them can be found here. There is also many resources and articles on why countless PhD scientists believe in Biblical creation at creation.com . Also with regard to "Refuting Evolution," it is online, available here. By the way, I first came across this site as they air their productions on CYC and at first I thought they were a bit dodgy, but trust me this site is great.

    I can understand what you mean when you say the Bible was not meant to be an accurate account of scientific or historical events, however this is not my field of expertise  so I will not try and discuss this with you. However, if something has not yet had enough scientific validity and support, my view is that we should not be so quick to rule out that the Bible cannot be speaking about an actual historical or scientific account. 

    Also I found the book online here
    Would you be able to point out which chapters I should read first to understand how the ancient Alexandrian church studied exegesis? I am no Theologian or Historian so I do need a bit of guidance when it comes to these things, however from the looks of it chapter 1 seems to be dealing with this issue.

    Pray for me
    God Bless

  • minasolimanminasoliman
    edited June 2014
    Dear Faithful Servant,

    I have debated evolution ad nauseum with many people.  The issue comes from certain misunderstandings and misapplications of scientific terminologies or scientific discoveries.  The fact is evolution has been studied from several aspects, fossil record, embryology, anatomical comparisons, biochemically, and now, the final nail on the coffin to solidify the theory of evolution, genetics.  When you use the distinction between micro and macro evolution, it is a distinction that has no clear cut line on where to draw.  For instance, evolution occurs on a cellular level and occurs on an insect and plant level, as has been observed, albeit on a slower scale than the cell, and the bacteria evolves faster than eukaryotes or more complex bacteria.  Does that mean that somehow the insects and plants have mediocre evolution, or eukaryotes have semi-microevolution?  The distinction only talks about the scale of what happens, but the same process in both can be observed and observed even up the human scale, and that is the rate of genetic change over time.  This lead to a study in population genetics, which can statistically predict how fast or slow something can evolve.  The more complex the organism, the slower the rate of evolution.

    We have even gotten so exact with genetic studies that we can actually know how distant one human from another is related to.  Genetically, I can find out perhaps that you are my 55th cousin 20 times removed or something.  We can find out what our common ancestor is, and with this same technology, it is has been used on an interspecies level to the point where it consistently confirms the overall picture of evolution that was studied embryologically, by fossil, anatomically, biochemically etc.  That's why genetics have turned evolution into a fact.

    The books published, I'm sorry to say, are usually published by Protestants or at the very least funded by Protestants who are invested in proving the scientific and historic accuracy of the Bible, turning the Bible into something even the Church fathers did not intend it for.  The Bible to these groups is a magic book (I saw one testimony video that literally speaks of the Bible floating in air and the words popping out and glowing with light to convert someone into Christianity!!!).  They have no Church tradition to fall on, and thus, the only way they can approve of their heretical dogmas is by turning the primary source of Church tradition (the Bible) into an idol that they worship.  They who profess iconoclasm have turned the Bible into a statue to bow down before.  In Islam, the same thing occurs, where the Quran is given such high veneration that it must be scientifically and historically accurate.  In addition, you hear Muslims speak of the Quran as having no literary mistakes that makes Shakespeare look like a first grader.  All these fantastical and sensationalist praises lead one to even kill for anyone who insults a letter in the Quran (I've only met one believing Muslim in my life who does not treat the Quran that way, and there are a minority of scholars who are changing the way they interpret the Quran based on today's science).

    This is not how we treat the Bible.  The Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit inspires the respective authors to write based on his personality, cultural beliefs, understandings, traditions, customs, etc, and using these ideas, weaves together a perfect picture of the revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is even thought that it can inspire historical fact interwoven with fiction to paint that complete picture of the gospel.  That doesn't mean all Scripture is fiction, but it does mean not everything should be taken scientifically or historically accurate (or even grammatically accurate for that matter), but to be interpreted in a spiritual manner.  Genesis chapter 1 for instance gives us the science of its day, the world of the four elements, water, air, fire, and dust.  Who can deny in their basic science courses that today we now know we have 110+ elements, not four.  Does that make Genesis 1 uninspired?  Absolutely not!  It is a beautifully written text filled with wonder about the Creator as well as the revelation of the Trinity and the gospel!

    Some books I can recommend that helps elucidate the science of evolution for you are "Finding Darwin's God" and "The Language of God", the former written by a Catholic, Dr. Kenneth Miller PhD (professor of cell biology and lead witness in the Kittsmiller vs. Board of Ed), and the latter by a Protestant, Dr. Francis Collins MD, PhD (atheist turned Christian, physician, discovered genetic links to breast cancer, and the head of the Genome Project that successfully mapped the human genome).  After much thought and study, I have come to a conclusion that those who advocate Intelligent Design as a science either commit basic scientific disaster or real Christian blasphemy against God (if they really know what science is).

    As for Origen's Philocalia, at least the first chapter, which is a long one, suffices.

    "I am a creationist and an evolutionist."  Dr. Theodosius Dobzhansky, father of the genetic definition of evolution and Orthodox Christian

    God bless.
  • cyril
    edited June 2014
    That's a very interesting observation, the similarity between Fundamentalist Islam and Fundamentalist Protestantism. They both seem to share a focus on textual primacy, the literal application and reading, the iconoclasm and even the sense of a far away God. Humanity and Divinity are separated, and Incarnation is denied. There's even the sense of triumphalism in proselytization and a conquering kind of missiology.

    (Someone once pointed out that a popular Evangelical Christian Worship song, if translated into Arabic would be the same words as a certain triumphalist battle cry.)

    One wonders if the literal readings of Scripture in our Church might be linked to a sort of double pressure from cultural persecution and enculturalization on one end and subtle protestant proselytizing on the other? Strange that the Church of Alexandria, known for its beautiful allegorical readings of Scripture in the Early Church has a more literal and fundamentalist way of reading today.

    “You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” + Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451

    Another way is perhaps allowing one to "read" but encouraging them to misread. 

  • Faithfull Servant 1
    edited June 2014
    Thank you for the insights and I am sorry for the delay in posting.

    Mina, you wrote that evolution has been studied form "fossil record, embryology, anatomical comparisons, biochemically, and now, the final nail on the coffin to solidify the theory of evolution, genetics"

    I am not saying that science is a lie, in fact I am a very strong believer in science. I am saying however that the studies you have pointed out above are not "conclusive" (as Father ap said in his post) as there have been many scientific refutations to them. I will tell you this, even if I did not believe in God or the Bible, I still wouldn't except evolution or its "evidence", if you can call it that. All the scientific refutations to it far outweigh the support for it. All these can be found here. 

    With regard to your comment about the books, you said that these are usually written by protestants trying to prove the scientific accuracy of the bible. However, this is not true. Looking at the authors of these books they have been written by people with PhDs, they have been written by scientists. Furthermore, in these books there is very little use of the Bible as evidence compared to how much scientific evidence they present forth. So please don't be so quick to knock these books of as "protestant," as they are simply science books, presenting forth scientific facts. I have never heard of someone undertaking a Bachelor of Science refuse to read or use their textbook because it wasn't written by somebody orthodox, this is the same concept with the books that I posted. 

    "This is not how we treat the Bible.  The Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit inspires the respective authors to write based on his personality, cultural beliefs, understandings, traditions, customs, etc, and using these ideas, weaves together a perfect picture of the revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is even thought that it can inspire historical fact interwoven with fiction to paint that complete picture of the gospel.  That doesn't mean all Scripture is fiction, but it does mean not everything should be taken scientifically or historically accurate (or even grammatically accurate for that matter), but to be interpreted in a spiritual manner.  Genesis chapter 1 for instance gives us the science of its day, the world of the four elements, water, air, fire, and dust.  Who can deny in their basic science courses that today we now know we have 110+ elements, not four.  Does that make Genesis 1 uninspired?  Absolutely not!  It is a beautifully written text filled with wonder about the Creator as well as the revelation of the Trinity and the gospel!"

    I agree with you 100%! You are right not everything should be taken literally, and don't get me wrong I am not advocating the complete literal reading of the Bible. What I am trying to say is that we shouldn't be so quick to brush off something written in the Bible as fiction when there is no conclusive evidence for it's opposite, and in this case, when there is so much scientific evidence for it's validity.

    There is a new book and documentary coming out called "Evolution's Achilles Heel," it can be found here. I urge everyone to read/ watch it.  

    Pray for me
    God Bless

  • cyril
    edited June 2014
    Here's what Dr Brenneman has to say about both ID and Creation science:

    "Obviously the belief that the Bible is true was not new to evangelicals or Christianity, but the fusion of Baconianism and Common Sense created a certain way the Bible was true. The Bible was seen as a storehouse of facts. The Baconian inductive method was a way to examine those facts and create a theology around this examination. Inductive reasoning from facts brought “truth”; deductive reasoning from previously conceived theories brought speculation or one’s prejudices to scripture. “Evangelicals assumed that when they applied scientific Common Sense to Scripture and God-given experience more generally, they could derive a fixed, universally valid theology” much like Isaac Newton’s laws."

  • cyril
    Fr Theodore Bobosh also has a nice reflection: http://frted.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/st-basil-and-21st-century-science/

    Maybe Post-Modernity and Pre-Modernity are very much related...
  • minasolimanminasoliman
    Faithful Servant,

    I'll comment in more detail, but yes, I will dismiss these people as Protestants protecting a warped view of the Bible, even so-called "PhDs" who get their degrees from the Discovery Institute or engage in scientific dishonesty. Just notice the fact that you are sending me links of a book from a Protestant website and the author of the book is "9 PhDs". Do I send you a theology book and tell you, "here's a great Christology textbook written by 7 bishops", or do you actually read the name of the authors to make sure this is a reputable bishop that I am convinced knows what he talks about?
  • minasolimanminasoliman
    edited June 2014
    To be honest I'm not sure what to extend exactly, but let me be clear about something.  I appreciate the fact that you do not consider science a lie.  But when I continue to research this, I find that those who are part of this, PhD or not, continue to deceive, either that or have fallen through the cracks with terrible credentials of science.

    In the past, they couldn't get enough biologists to promote creationism or Intelligent Design.  They did get one biochemist, Michael Behe, and even he actually in his hypothesis of "irreducible complexity" does not deny common ancestry with apes.  The issue is that many people jumped on the opportunity to include his ideas into the fight against evolution and for their views of the Bible.  This was exposed in the Kittzmiller vs Dover case.

    Then you get mathematicians who say that the timing is impossible.  That too is a misunderstanding of "natural selection."  When scientists use the term random, that does not exclude the fact there is positive selection in nature, and so the laws of science are in fact guiding evolution in such a manner that there is in fact enough time worked through in the process.

    When Ben Stein came up with his movie, you see the same arguments regurgitated with the same false dichotomies it presents.  It is truly a work of deception, not a work of objective research.  With the movie "Evolution's Achilles' Heel" coming out, I worry this is all the same junk brought about by "qualified scientists".

    Furthermore, as far as we are concerned, we should not waste our time with such idiocies.  This isn't just against evolution, but there's also a fight against the geological record and a fight against basic theories of physics just to further the case of "Biblical accuracy".  We need to step back a bit and say, "is it really worth my time to try to prove evolution is wrong based on theological premises?"  One question you should ask, "what are the theological issues that I'm worried about?"

    Am I saying that the Image of God was formed from an ape?  No, I'm not.  Just as the Bible differentiates between the creation by the dust of the earth (like any other land creature mind you) and creation in the Image by God's Breathe, so too one can typify the dust of the earth as the evolutionary process, and the creation in the Image and Likeness.

    Am I saying that the Bible is not the inspired word of God?  No, as I mentioned before, the Bible is the story of man's history of relationship with God and the revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and man's salvation.  Some of the stories may be fiction interwoven with facts, but the fullness of the Scriptures, each and every word, represents the Truth, that is Christ Jesus our Lord.

    Am I saying that the age of the Earth is old?  Yes, I am, and just because the age assumed in the Scriptures is young does not mean it was meant to teach dogmatically that the Earth is young.

    Am I saying that animals experienced death and corruption before the creation of Adam?  Yes, I am, and in fact, there are Coptic bishops who already believe this even though they may have trouble with evolution.  Nevertheless, it was man's sin who lead to man's death.  That is the most important aspect of the faith.  All creation may in fact seek redemption, but man's sorry state kept creation in the state of death and corruption.  St. Athanasius even said that man was the only thing in all of physical creation to receive the grace of immortality and incorruption, even though they are by nature, like all other creation, mortal and corruptible.

    In a nutshell, I find it superfluous to argue whether evolution is false or true if it does not matter so long as one has a strong faith in Christ and a true understanding of the Bible.
  • Faithfull Servant 1
    Dear Mina,
    This is probably the last post I will make on this thread.

    Firstly, I would like to thank you for all the insights you have given me about everything we have discussed, you are, in my opinion and probably many others, one of the greats on this forum.

    Secondly, I will respect your belief but I will maintain mine and I will maintain to be a young earth creationist due to the overwhelming amount of evidence out there, even though you have chosen to dismiss these scientists as phony or illegitimate. As I have said before, science glorifies God and all I see when I study science (physics, mathematics, biology, geology etc...) is the glory of God, and I hope that everyone does too, which is why I posted on here in the first place. 

    Finally I would like to say that you are absolutely correct, this whole discussion comes second to a life of faith and communion with our God. 

    Please pray for and may God bless you with every blessing Pacon Mina,
    Anthony.

  • minasolimanminasoliman
    edited June 2014
    Thank you for your kind and undeserved words really. I'm no better than anyone. I simply learn and share what I learned. My passion for science is personally that I find science really sacred. God Himself created the laws of science, and I venerate it as if it were the language God used to create, and we all know how attached we can get to a sacred language God used to communicate with to us through His saints. When I chant in the Psalmody, "praise him all you wind and rain, snow and hail, sun and moon, cold and heat, birds and beasts, fish and creeping things, all you angels and saints, all nations", I think of how much value we put in the creation of God as a glory to God. When I feel science is misused I get very passionate about it, not only because of the value it has with God, but also of how it could make us look unnecessarily irrational to many others, not befitting those who truly praise God in all in His glorious creation.
  • Ousia
    edited October 2014
    .
  • sakmak
    I just came across this discussion, and I found it very interesting.

    Quick question though... 

    Assuming all species have a common ancestor, how do you reconcile the account of Adam & Eve with evolution? What should we interpret as symbolic vs literal? Since evolution refers to a change over time in a population rather than individuals, then that would assume that at the time of Adam & Eve, there was a large population of humans. Did God breathe into the nostrils the breath of life of just one man, or into every man that lived at that time? If it was just one man, that brings a lot of other questions, such as what happened to all the other humans that lived at that time? Were they denied the breath of life? If they were denied the breath of life, what happened to them? Did they all just die and Adam was the only "human" that survived? If it was into every man that lived at that time, then we will have to assume that the entire account of Adam & Eve is to be taken as symbolic, and that not until Genesis 4 can we start reading it as literal. But that would be a theological stretch. 

    Sorry for bringing back a controversial topic, but I feel like these are important questions that need to be answered if we are to assume that God used evolution to create humans, and that all organisms have a common ancestor.
  • cyril
    "The Church is not a Bible-based teaching institution – the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth, the Body of Christ, divinely given by God for our salvation and it uses the Scriptures and everything that exists for the purpose of expounding the truth it has received from God from the very beginning."

    Father Stephen Freeman
    http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2014/09/28/bible-bible/
  • minasolimanminasoliman
    This is a message I shared with someone privately more than two years ago.  I edited it to make it public:


    I've gotten to the point where when one builds a certain level of maturity in thinking, the questions no longer matter.  It's like asking whether Noah took 2 or 7 of each animal.  Why should it matter?  Let us not treat the Bible like the Quran.  The Bible is more dignified than that.
  • cyril
    Has Your Bible Become A Quran?
    By Fr Stephen Freeman

    http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2014/10/01/bible-become-quran/
  • cyril
    Mina here's your post in another format
    http://www.writeurl.com/publish/8einm13cseelnl249uvb
  • minasolimanminasoliman
    where do these other formats come from?  it seems google publishes this in more than one way
  • minasolimanminasoliman
    Thanks for the article by Fr. Stephen Freeman.  I agree with his article in general, with one major exception:  his criticism of scholasticism.  I think it is a good tool when used appropriately, and our Coptic Church has been scholastic in her tradition post-Chalcedonian (a commenter at the bottom named Samn! also mentioned the same for the EO tradition).  It was a very popular tool of philosophical and theological discussion.  Admittedly it is because of Islam that it skyrocketed in popularity among Christian and Jewish theologians, but even before Islam, there was some form of scholasticism evident when systematically explaining theology.
  • sakmak
    "O You, the Being, who were and who abides forever, the eternal, co-essential, co-enthroned, and co-creator with the Father. Who for the sake of goodness only brought man into existence out of nonexistence, and put him in the paradise of joy." -St. Gregory Liturgy

    "You, as Lover of Mankind, have created me, as man. You had no need of my servitude, but rather I had need of Your lordship. Because of the multitude of Your tender mercies, You have brought me into existence when I was not." -St. Gregory Liturgy

    An Excerpt from Fr. Tadros Malaty's "Patristic Commentary on Genesis":
    "In the second century, it seems that Origen believed that the story of Adam and Eve, and all what happened to them, was a purely symbolic story, presented by the divine inspiration, to reveal spiritual concepts that touch Adam’s life in relationship to God; that the Garden was not on earth but in the third heavens, where Adam and Eve, before their fall, were two spirits with no real bodies; that they descended from paradise to earth as a result of their sin; and that the bodies they acquired were a kind of punishment. St. Epiphanius of Salamis at Cyprus, attacked these views in his correspondence to St. John of Jerusalem.

    These views are totally unacceptable by the Church, as they distort the look at the world created by God as a sign of His love for us, and they corrupt our belief in the sanctification of the body. Christ the Lord, as well as His saintly apostles, proclaimed the early incidents of creation as actual and not as symbolic incidents.

    (1) Both Testaments of the Holy Scripture are built on the revelation of the sacrifice of salvation that humanity needed, after the fall of our parents Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden... (See Romans 5); and on the fact that the fall of Adam had necessitated the redemptive work of Christ, to save man as a whole - spirit and body, and not to save his spirit alone. For if the human body is the product of sins that the spirit has committed earlier in separation from the body, there would be no need for the Divine Incarnation and for the salvation of the body together with the spirit.

    (2) When Christ the Lord talked, Himself, about marriage, He referred to it on the basis of what happened at the onset of creation, as a historical truth, in order to prohibit divorce (Matthew 19: 3-6; Mark 10:2-9).

    (3) Christ referred to the episode of the fall of our parents on the onset of creation, clarifying the role of the devil and his deceit (John 8:44).

    (4) When the apostle Paul talked about the Church as the bride of the Lord Christ, he mentioned the serpent’s deceit of Eve as an actual episode (1 Corinthians 11:3).

    (5) In the genealogy of Christ the Lord, the Evangelist Luke mentioned Adam as the first man created (Luke 3:38).

    (6) The apostle Paul talked about Abel (son of Adam and Eve), as an actual person and not as a symbol (Hebrew 11: 4).

    While we do not deny the existence of that Garden, as actual history lived by Adam, yet we also see in that Garden, a symbol of Christ the Lord who came to us from the East, into Whom Adam enters, to find in Him his fulfillment and the joy of his heart. As the word ‘Eden’ means “joy” or “paradise,” therefore, Christ our Lord is the True Joy and the Source of our eternal Paradise.

    If the Garden symbolizes Christ the Lord as the Source of our joy, on the other hand, it symbolizes the Church, as the body of Christ that carries, on the inside and in her midst, the ‘Tree of Life,’ symbol of Christ the Lord, the Head of the Church and the Source of her life."

  • minasolimanminasoliman
    One of the views that Abouna Tadros is talking about is the idea that Adam and Eve were spiritual beings who sinned, and because of sin, took flesh.  This view is unacceptable.  But if the existence of the persons of Adam and Eve mean a lot, then sure, that does not need to contradict evolution.  If Adam and Eve were real people, they probably were not the only hominids.

    The point is it is not a vexing issue for me anymore.  It is still vexing for others.  That's fine.  I'm fine with "I don't know" as I explained in my attached post.  Especially since God is not a God of confusion, then I will take his genetic and fossil evidence as He intended.  My faith in Christ is unwavering.  The quotes from St. Gregory's liturgy make a lot of sense because it is addressed to me.

    Nonetheless, I don't believe in a Fall that is a result of a spirit's incarnation, as if the flesh is evil, because, as Abouna Tadros mentioned:  "totally unacceptable by the Church, as they distort the look at the world created by God as a sign of His love for us, and they corrupt our belief in the sanctification of the body."  However, I did say "I don't know" when I talked about the existence of Adam and Eve themselves.  It's called being honest with the evidence and with what I'm presented.  Does that change my faith?  No.  I still believe that because of our fallenness, our faltering existence, and our continuous and more evil sins, we need a Savior, who has to be incarnate, in the fullness of human nature, to save our human nature.

    I also still believe in marriage between one man and one woman, and I believe divorce is very damaging.  I believe we are fallen human beings, but I don't know how that fall came about.  I see a lot of spiritual truth in the book of Genesis, and I see that in these chapters are revelations about my sinfulness and about the salvation of Christ.  I believe in these stories also the revelation of the Church as the bride of Christ.  I believe that Christ's genealogical importance is that He is human (i.e. son of Adam, or "son of Man"), that He is the Son of Abraham (the son of faith), and the son of David (the Messiah).  I believe also God chose a specific genealogy that has a lot of fallen and sinful ancestry as well, teaching us about His mission to save us particularly from this fallenness.

    I believe that whatever happened that caused our Fall probably occurred in a realm outside of time and space, which probably had eternal repercussions when whatever the disobedience was, it caused us to be in the state we are in, constantly abusing the world and causing the world to groan for salvation.

    So essentially, despite me taking the "I don't know" approach, I have not really changed any essential dogmatic faith in Christ.
  • qawe
    edited October 2014
    @minasoliman

    Have you ever considered that the theory of evolution *presupposes* the fact that creation was a natural scientific process without divine intervention (save perhaps at the outset)?

    How can you use science to authoritatively characterise a process that may be miraculous (indeed aspects of it are certainly miraculous) and thus non-scientific?

    Say you gathered all the pieces of evidence for the origin of life into one place.  Then you tried to piece them together in the most logical way possible.  I agree that you would come up with the theory of evolution as we know it today. But it is still a RECONSTRUCTION.  There is no reason to believe that it resembles in any way what *actually happened*, unless you also presuppose that there was no active divine intervention in the process, i.e. it was a purely natural process.
  • minasolimanminasoliman
    edited October 2014
    Not necessarily.  If one sees the material world as an allegory of something spiritual, just because it seems to live on material laws does not mean it is solely material.  The fact that we are able to examine the world reveals humanity as a "super-material" or "super-natural".  We examine the world based on the intellect.  Whatever this "intellect" is, it helps us see the program that guides material world into existence.  This "program" is dubbed "the laws of science".  Evolution for instance has the law of "natural selection".  Where we are, the place that we are in the universe seems to have an effect on the biological turn of events.  It seems to me nature is programmed to evolve into a being that is receptive of intellectual superiority.

    I shared this elsewhere, but I'll share this here.  My favorite chapter in the Bible is Psalm 127, where it begins, "Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labors in vain."  When all things are done because of God's mercy and for the glory of God, are we saying there is no active divine intervention in the process of building?  What about when a surgeon repairs or removes organs?  Is not God present actively?  What about when we mix chemicals and make synthetic material?  Does the Lord not make it with us?

    Did God anticipate He would be the son of Judah and Tomar, the son of Rahab, the Son of Ruth and Boaz, the son of David and Bathshebah?  Despite the obvious deficiencies in these people, God blessed their children as the ancestry of the Messiah.  That's why the Old Testament is filled with their stories.

    So when snow and hail, sun and moon, rain and thunder, birds and beast "praise the Lord", I have faith that the materialistic processes that occur do not occur in vain, because the Lord is always involved (even when there's a sense of randomness, or in the case of Christ's ancestry, free will, involved).  Just as a builder uses materialistic mathematical and engineering concepts to build a house, but for the glory of God, so is the material world an altar to God, where our scientific knowledge is nothing but finding out how God decided to make us, and the hours of studying put into figuring this out is our burning of incense before the God who created the laws of science and all that is therein.

    So one is left with either two options.  Either the material world is all there is, or the material world reveals the awesomeness of God.  In both cases, we use the material world to figure out from its evidences what happened, and I also contend even the atheist does this for the glory of God without even knowing.  For a sense of passion and awe and constant meditation on creation is not something a mere passive created being can do, but one who is super-natural.  We are two natures in one, angelic and physical.  It is not far-fetched to see that the physical has a set of laws that is studied differently than spirituality, and yet both are connected in a sense of "law of purpose".  Spirituality (divine intervention) does build a house, because you don't build a house unless for a higher purpose.
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