trevor j major

Whether they like it or not, evolutionists find themselves having to dabble in theology and philosophy. Typically they’re not very good at one, or the other, or both, but they don’t have a lot of choice. They know that religious belief predominates, and they know that the inference to design in nature is profoundly intuitive. It certainly was for David:

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. – Psalm 139:14

To overturn three-plus millennia of what almost everyone knows very well is a tall order, and so hyper-Darwinists like Richard Dawkins know where they must begin:

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.[1]

They also know where the entire enterprise must end. Materialistic science leads to the soul destroying conclusion that there is no morality and no meaning. It’s a hard sell.

One brutally honest approach is to put the unadulterated wares on sale knowing that the local fast food chains will have better luck selling tofu burgers at their drive-through windows. This was Richard Dawkins in a more honest moment back in 1995:

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.[2]

Another approach, and the preferred mission model of the New Atheists, is to gussy up the product with a sprinkling of religion, or something that looks a lot like religion. It’s not always possible to tell whether this approach is unintentional, with religion sneaking in the back door, or just plain cynical, with atheists charging out of the portcullis to raid the enemy’s stores.[3] This is Dawkins in latest outing, The Magic of Reality (2011).

What might be new for Dawkins is old hat for E.O. Wilson. “The evolutionary epic,” Wilson wrote back in 1978, “is probably the best myth we will ever have.”[4] Like many atheists, Wilson takes his myth-building cues from Prometheus – the old titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it back to man.

The true Promethean spirit of science . . . constructs the mythology of scientific materialism, guided by the corrective devices of the scientific method, addressed with precise and deliberately affective appeal to the deepest needs of human nature, and kept strong by the blind hopes that the journey on which we are now embarked will be farther and better than the one just completed.[5]

In the ancient Greek tragedy, Prometheus Bound, the rebellious titan not only stole fire from the gods, but “caused mortals to cease foreseeing their doom.” That seems a worthy enough goal, at least at first glance. After all, who wants to go through life knowing that Zeus is about to blast the whole of humanity into Hades? Except that Prometheus adds deception to his crimes: “I caused blind hopes to dwell within their breasts.”

The greater context of the “blind hopes” line is what makes militant atheists both less like and more like Prometheus than they usually admit. They’re less like Prometheus  because at least the titan saved humanity from the wrath of Zeus. Last time I checked, atheists have saved exactly zero souls from eternal punishment. (They haven’t done much for the living, either.[6]) And they’re more like Prometheus in that they need to offer a piece of deception along with their gift of all that counts as knowledge. If materialistic science is the only game in town, then “hope” is an answer to a question that nobody is allowed to ask. What can they pretend to offer in its place?

Unfortunately, evolution – the central creation story of materialistic science – is the perfect engine of despair. Not only is it depressingly “red in tooth and claw,”[7] it is entirely backward facing. Evolution cannot look forward to the next day, the next ice age, or the next asteroid impact. Evolution is blind. “It has no vision,” as an earlier Dawkins reminds us, “no foresight, no sight at all.”[8]

But not to worry: materialistic science will win the day. It will tell us everything we need to know.

And therein lays the deception. Materialism has shown itself to be entirely incapable of explaining the mind, the universe, life, and pretty much everything else important to the human experience. It can do even less for “the deepest needs of human nature.” Even if we lump the best of science and technology into this picture we will have no more than Prometheus’ gift of fire. It will give us something useful, perhaps, but not hopeful. It will allow us to plan and scheme based on what we see right in front of us, on what the devilish Uncle Wormwood would call “real life,”[9] on what crops we are growing and barns we are building,[10] but all such hopes are blind. What humanity needs so deeply is a future good, and nothing here and now will ever satisfy that need.[11]

[A version of this article appeared in Think, January 2012, p. 11.]

Thomas Nelson – the world’s biggest religious publishing house – now belongs to the secular publishing house, HarperCollins.[1] If you look at the spine of your Bible, there’s a good chance you’ll see the Nelson name. One of Nelson’s titles, Heaven is for Real, is on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list.

On amazon.com, Real is the top seller in their “Christian Theology” section. In fact, as of writing, 9 out of 20 books are about heaven.[2] One is a straight ahead attempt at saying what heaven is like. Two (from Rob Bell) suggest that everybody is going to heaven. The six remaining titles represent three allegedly true stories (in various formats) of people who went to heaven and came back again.

In some respects, these stories resemble the Near Death Experiences that people used to talk about in the heyday of the New Age movement. But these go beyond the typical NDE story: it’s not just a case of seeing the light, or Jesus opening His arms, but of spending time in heaven.

Trust Me, I Was There?

Heaven is for Real (2010)

• This is meant to be the true-life story of a 4 year old boy who went into surgery for an appendectomy and then, after surgery, had all sorts of amazing tales to tell about heaven.
• His accounts are compelling, so we are led to believe, because they reveal all sorts of information about heaven that a 4 year old couldn’t possibly know unless he had actually been there.

The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven (2010)

• This is a story of a 6 year old boy who went into a coma following a car accident.
• When he woke up two months later, he told his parents that the angels had taken him to the gates of heaven, and he talked to Jesus.
• He related events at the accident scene and in the hospital while he was in a coma – events, allegedly, that he could know nothing about unless he saw them in heaven.

90 Minutes in Heaven (2004)

• A Baptist preacher was in a serious car accident, declared dead at the scene, and allegedly spent 90 minutes in heaven.
• Another Baptist preacher was passing by, stopped to pray, and the guy miraculously came back to life.

Quick Response

1.    Is it possible to die, see heaven, and live to tell the tale?

• Absolutely. We know that Paradise is the next step for those who are found righteous in God’s sight (Luke 23:43). John the Apostle gives us a highly symbolic picture of heaven in the Book of Revelation. So we know that something incredible awaits us up there, and…
• Jesus showed His power over death by raising people like Lazarus (John 11), and the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7). The resurrection of Christ is the ultimate example of life after death (1 Cor. 15). But you will notice that neither Lazarus nor Jesus tell us anything about their experiences in heaven.
• Paul in 2 Cor. 12 talks about a man who “was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words,” although the apostle leaves it open as to whether this really happened or not. In the context of this passage, Paul is talking about prophetic visions, not a round trip visit to Paradise.

2.    That was back in the days of miracles. What about today?

• Even if the stories in the popular books were true, they shouldn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. We know there’s a heaven. Jesus told His disciples in John 14:2 that He was going to prepare many mansions. That promise is backed up by the Person and work of our resurrected Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s all we need to know.

• If these stories are trying to tell us something we don’t already know, then they fall under the warning of Gal. 1:8 – “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.”

3.    What we don’t get in any of these books is independent corroboration that what they say is true. In fact, there are claims in these books that are simply unbiblical.

4.    Here’s what we do know: “it is appointed for men to die once, and after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). That’s the sobering truth we need to hang our hat on.

Update: Interesting little post from Hunter Baker at Touchstone/Mere Comments.

The Grand Design, by Hawking and Mlodinow

A friend asked recently if I had seen any worthy critiques of Hawking’s latest work. I haven’t had time to delve in to the book, but it’s been on my radar.

In the links below I have tried to indicate whether the material is written from a theistic perspective or not, and whether the article appears on “neutral”  ground (for sharing with your skeptical friends):

• Book: John Lennox, God and Stephen Hawking (review of said book here) (theists)
• Video: John Lennox, Stephen Hawking and God: A Response (theist)
• Article: William Lane Craig, The Grand Design – Truth of Fiction (theist)
• Article: Umberto Eco, Star Trek and the death of philosophy (non-theist / neutral)
• Article: Christopher Norris, Hawking contra philosophy (non-theist / neutral)
• Article: David Tyler, Hawking’s Grand Design – But is it Science? (theist)
• Article: Bruce Gordon, Hawking Irrational Arguments (theist / neutral)
• Article: Albert Mohler, No Need for God? Stephen Hawking Defies Divine Creation (theist)

The two most important theistic respondents seem to be Lennox and Craig. Lennox’s book is probably the best place to start.

For skeptics like Bart Ehrman, the key to undermining the Christian faith is to undermine the Christian text. After all, faith “comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”[1] But what if we are not really hearing the word of Christ? What if we are really hearing the word of power-hungry men who conspired to give us their particular spin on the person and nature of Jesus Christ?

Peter famously confessed that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”[2] Christians make that same confession today. In the greater context of the New Testament, we come to understand that Christ’s sonship is tied inextricably to His deity.[3] God the Father sent His Son into the world so that we could believe what Peter and the rest of the apostles believed.[4] But what, exactly, did Peter believe?

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Surveys by the Barna Research Group show that teens are more likely than adults to attend worship services and participate in other activities of the local church.[1] The picture changes alarmingly after graduation. More than sixty percent of survey respondents who were active in their teen years are no longer active in their twenties.

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