Goheen on Worldview

For more on Goheen’s approach to worldview, see:

12 Books that have Influenced Me

Here are some of the most influential books that I’ve read, if not for their content, then for the effect they had on me at the time when I read them (in no particular order).

1)Resurrection- Hank Hanegraff: This was a pivotal book for me early on in my Christian walk. Hanegraaff employs (more or less) the standard evidential argument in favor of the historical, bodily resurection of Christ. This was the first book I read that showed that Christianity is rationally defensible.

2)The Gospel According to Jesus- John MacArthur. Originally I read this work thinking I would disagree with it (I was a young and silly antinomian at the time) but was overwhelmed by the biblical force of MacArthur’s argument that receiving Christ as savior entails placing yourself under his lordship.

3) Doctrine of the Knowledge- John Frame. Other than the Bible, this is my favorite book. Frame develops a God-centered approach to epistemology (theory of knowledge). His clear writing style was welcoming, and his humility comes through on nearly every page. For an outline of the book, click here.

4) Apologetics to the Glory of God- John Frame. Here Frame develops a presuppositional apologetic with insights from DKG (above). Highly readable and very insightful. He defines the 3 tasks of apologetics of defense, offense, and proof.

5) The Potter’s Freedom- James White. They work was the “nail in the coffin” for me reading my views on free will, God’s sovereignty, election, predestination, etc. White defends the Calvinist view of God’s work in salvation over against the modified arminianism of Norman Geisler in Chosen But Free.

6) Dominion and Dynasty- Stephen Dempster. I love this book. In fact, apart from the works of Graeme Goldsworthy and the teaching of Richard Pratt, this book was the main work that sparked my love (and understanding) of the Old Testament.

7) Worldviews in Conflict- Ronald Nash

8 ) The Pleasure of God- John Piper. My favorite book Piper’s written, and he’s written some fantastic books. He main thesis is that we become more like God when we take pleasure in the things he takes pleasure in. He then spends the rest of the book explaining what the Lord delights in, first in himself (the loving relationship among the members of the Trinity, his delight in all that he does, etc.), and second in his creation (prayer, justice, etc.)

9) Reckless Faith- John MacArthur. A great book for sharpening your discernment.

10) Looking at Philosophy- Donald Palmer. Palmer is fantastic at explaining philsophical concepts and the connections between schools of thought. Challenging and also pleasant.

11) The God Who is There- Francis Schaffer

12) Connecting- Larry Crabb

Thanksgiving Psalm (136)

136:1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

4 to him who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
5 to him who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
7 to him who made the great lights,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
8 the sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
9 the moon and stars to rule over the night,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
11 and brought Israel out from among them,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
12 with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
13 to him who divided the Red Sea in two,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
14 and made Israel pass through the midst of it,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
15 but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

17 to him who struck down great kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
18 and killed mighty kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
19 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
20 and Og, king of Bashan,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
21 and gave their land as a heritage,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
22 a heritage to Israel his servant,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

23 It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
24 and rescued us from our foes,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
25 he who gives food to all flesh,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

26 Give thanks to the God of heaven,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

Thoughts on Evangelism, Apologetics, and Witness

Here are some random thoughs on evangelisms, apologetics, and witness:

1) Yes, there will be times when speaking to unbelievers will feel like pulling teeth. Why? Because too often, the non-Christian thinks they know what Christianity is all about, while in fact, they know next to nothing about the historic Christian faith.

2) Picking up from point 1, remember that ignorance and arrogance often go hand in hand (Yes, I did get that from a Metallica song-years ago-but I have no better way of stating it). Some people think they know it all (including Christian apologists!) and real dialogue cannot take place. Maturity must occur,often in both parties, before eyes are opened and ears are unstopped.

Stay true to the wise words of the Savior, “Do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they turn and trample you.” (click here for a helpful application of this to apologetics)

3)Do make sure that in all evangelizing and commending the faith that you clearly press the piint that you’re not merely talking about feeling, or personal preferences. Too often this is exactly how non-Christians hear us. They believe that we’re pig-headed or snobbish. How dare we think that our feelings are more important than those of other religions? Of course, we’re not saying that at all. We’re making comments about the real world and  real history.

4) Be encouraged, because even while we feel that the invested minutes, hours, days and months is speaking to someone about Christianity are wasted, the truth is that they are never wasted. They always serve God’s purpose, whether in redemption or judgment (cf. 2 Cor. 2:14-16). God’s word never fails to serve it’s intended purposes (Is. 55:11). As James White is fond of saying, “Our job is to proclaim the truth, not to edit it.”

Some Things to Consider for Thanksgiving

The Greatest Story Ever Told in Four Minutes

I just found this at Between Two Worlds:

Here are the lyrics:

It’s the greatest story ever told.
A God pursues foes whose hearts turned cold.
The greatest story ever told.
Restoring all that the enemy stole.
The greatest story ever told.
The glory of Christ is the goal, behold.
The greatest story ever told.
It’s the greatest.

Alright check it: let’s go back in time, brethren. Divine lessons always keep your mind guessing. The glory of the Triune God is what I’m stressing. The origin of humankind was fine. Blessings were plenteous. God is amazingly generous. Crazy benefits in a state of innocence. God told the man what he could taste was limited. Not long after came our nemesis in Genesis. He scammed well, man fell, damned to hell. The whole human race—he represented it. Fooled by the serpent, man through his work, woman through birth—even the earth ruled by the curses. But instead of a wake immediately. God said her Seed would be the One to crush the head of the snake. Yo, wait what is this? Whoa, a gracious gift! In Jehovah’s faithfulness He clothed their nakedness. This was so they would know their Savior’s kiss and bliss. But first, many growing pains exist suffering in the worst form, ugly deeds. Eve’s firstborn seed made his brother bleed. Indeed things got progressively worse. Every section of the earth is been affected by the curse. And though God’s judgments against sin were gory, praise the Lord! It’s not the end of the story.

Next scene: man’s sin was extreme. God gets steamed, man gets creamed. The Lord is so Holy that He drowned them in the water. Fire in the valley of slaughter – Sodom and Gomorrah. But at the same time, He’s so gracious and patient that from one man He created a whole nation. Eventually enslaved by the mentally depraved, they cried out to the only One with the strength that He could save. He brought them out with signs and wonders – satisfied their hunger. Then He appeared on Mount Sinai in thunder. Where He laid down the law for God-ruled government. Commonly referred to as the Mosaic covenant. Sin was imputed. So for man to know he’s unrighteous, God instituted animal sacrifices. This was to show our constant need for atonement. And when it came to sin, the Lord would never condone it. And when His people disobeyed and went astray, He raised up prophets and kings to lead them in the way. But they would get foul with their idolatry—wet and wild prophecy—send them into exile. To take their punishment like a grown man. Then with His own hand He placed them back in their homeland. And while in their forefather’s land they dwelt, they awaited the arrival of Emmanuel.

After 400 silent years filled with sighs and tears. In Bethlehem the Messiah appears. God in the flesh—Second Person of the Trinity. At thirty begins His earthly ministry. Baffling cats with accurate, exact facts and back-to-back miraculous acts. A stumbling block to the self righteous. But the humbled—His flock, said “There’s no one else like this.” He came from heaven to awake the numb. Demonstrated His power over nature, son. A foretaste of the Kingdom and the age to come. But the reason He came was to pay the sum for the depths of our wickedness, our wretched sinfulness. Bless His magnificence! He is perfect and innocent. Yet He was wrecked and His death. He predicted it. Next He was stretched, paid a debt that was infinite. He said that He finished it. Resurrected so the elect would be the recipients of its benefits. Through faith and penitence we get to be intimate. His grace is heaven sent, it never diminishes. Now the Holy Spirit indwelling is the evidence for heaven’s future residents who truly represent Jesus, the Author, Producer, Director, and Star of a story that will never, ever end!

D. A. Carson on The Existence of God

How do I know God exists? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

Leithart on Van Til

From Peter Leithart:

Based on a student’s questioning, I’m wondering whether “presuppositionalism” is the best term to describe what Vantillians are after. We don’t, after all, come up with some kind of set of axioms or theological idea “prior” to receiving revelation. We can talk about making the Triune God our “starting point” as much as we want, but faith in the Triune God is not in fact the “starting point” of our thinking (in either a chronological or logical sense). I like Frame’s revisionist view that “presuppositions” are really “basic commitments,” but that still seems to individualistic to me. I’d rather think of how we can ecclesiologize Van Til: Instead of saying that “all our thinking is grounded in the presupposition of the Triune God of Scripture,” we might say “as Christians we think and act from within the Church, which is the body of Christ and the community of worshipers of the Triune God.” This moves Van Til in the direction of postliberals and postmoderns, but that’s not a bad move in this case I think.

Food for Thought!

D’Souza on “The Grounding Problem”

In a lovely moment of providence, and picking up the theme of my last post, the blog over of Stand to Reason just posted this:

Dinesh D’Souza does a good job critiquing attempts to explain morality in Darwinist terms.  Morality, along with consciousness, remains one of the stubborn features of reality that we all know intuitively, which cannot be explained in purely naturalistic terms.  The lack of explanatory power in Darwinism is called “the grounding problem.”

One key point about the catalog of evolutionary arguments D’Souza cites is that evolutionary explanations always change the definition of what we’re talking about in morality.  D’Souza notes one way this is done by pointing out that the morality we want explained is prescription; but any scientific explanation, by the very nature of science, will be descriptive.  Science can only observe and explain what occurs in nature.  It doesn’t have the capacity to explain why morality has a prescriptive incumbency on us that the laws of nature don’t have.  We have moral duties that are quite different in nature than the law of gravity, for example.  We follow the law of gravity, but we don’t have a prescriptive moral duty with the subsequent moral guilt if we don’t obey it.

Here’s another way the terms are changed in evolutionary explanations.  Note in the article that each and every attempt to give an evolutionary account for morality has to change any self-sacrificial and altruistic act a selfish explanation because that’s the only way evolution works.  Survival of the fittest produces “selfish genes,” as Richard Dawkins coined it.  But if so-called self-sacrificial and altruistic acts actually have a selfish explanation for how they evolved, then they really aren’t sacrificial or altruistic, are they?  The definition has been changed because evolution can’t explain morality.

Involuted Speculations

Here’s a site that you might find interesting. It’s written by my friend Hiram Diaz, who contributed a post here, here, and here.

Atheism and the “Grounding Problem”

From the New York Times online:

Starting next Monday, a coalition of local groups will run a monthlong advertising campaign in a dozen Manhattan subway stations with the slogan “A Million New Yorkers Are Good Without God. Are You?” The posters also advertise the Web site BigAppleCoR.org, which provides a listing of local groups affiliated with the Coalition of Reason, the umbrella organization that coordinated the campaign.

This campaign is intended to 1) heighten awareness of the atheist movement in New York City, and 2) to coincide with the release of Greg Epstein’s upcoming book, Good without God.  Though the table of contents for Epstein’s book isn’t posted just yet, I sure hope that he addresses what’s known as the “grounding problem” for atheists when it comes to morality. Before I explain this a little bit more, there are a couple of things that I think need saying.

1) I believe that the Coalition of Reason has every legal right to post these signs, and no one (especially Christians!) should rob them of our freedom of speech.

2) I do not believe that one must believe in God in order to be a morally praiseworthy person. Too often non-Christians seem to think that Christians claim that atheism automatically leads to a life of depravity and evil. Sadly, many Christians do believe this, but the best Christian thinkers have never stated the case this way. The issue of dispute is the grounding problem (more in just a second).

3) The reason I believe that atheists often lead better ethical lives that their position would seem to imply is because I believe in the doctrine of common grace.

Okay, now to the grounding problem. Naturalism and atheism deny the existence of the Triune God of the Bible.  On a Christian worldview, what is right and wrong, what is beneficial for the glory of God and the flourishing of human beings is 1) that which is consistent with the being, character, and nature of God, and 2) that which is in accordance with His verbal revelation (made known to us in the Bible). That is all to say Christians have an objective standard for what is good and bad, one not rooted in personal preference or a numbers game.

So the question isn’t if one can still perform good deed if they don’t believe in God. The question is what are the grounds for making a distinction between good and bad in an atheistic world? The Why be good? question simply will not go away no matter how long it is ignored or mocked? As a Christian, the fact that atheists are often stand-up citizens isn’t a challenge to my worldview. Despite their denial of the Triune God, He is still the Creator and the One who inscribed His moral law on their hearts (cf. Rom. 2).

It is because the world is precisely what the atheist denies (i.e. under the rulership and direction of the sovereign Lord) that they can act in ways that they deceive themeselves into thinking are independent of God.

Review: Longing to Know

Back in 2003, Brazos (an imprint of Baker Book House) released Esther Meek’s Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People. I read it a while back, took some summary notes, and then apparently forgot about them. Just recently I ran across them and thought they might be helpful to those who are curious about what’s called epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge), but turned off by dry academic tomes.

1) Preliminary Concerns:

A) According to Meek, the history of western philosophy can be described as the path from skepticism to certainty back to skepticism. As a result those who seek knowledge that does not change (and indeed cannot change) have purposed several criteria for what qualifies as ”certainty” in the field of epistemology.

One important qualification for certainty is that the object of our knowledge must be impervious to doubt beyond question (or indubitable). But there’s a crucial problem with this model of certainty, namely that it does not fulfill it’s own requirements. This proposition for certainty (”Genuine objects of knowledge must be impervious to doubt and beyond question”) is itself subject to doubt, yet, in light of this we still claim knowledge of many things as is abundantly demonstrated by our everyday experience as “knowing” agents. Thus, this foundational pillar of epistemology must be reexamined, and quite possibly redefined.

B) Another problem that nags epistemological endeavors is that if we are to formulate a true-to-life epistemology we are faced with examining an action that we perform almost every moment of our life. While tacitly we perform these actions, putting them into carefully formulated propositions is quite tricky. We’re are so “close” that stepping back and reflecting on our “epistemic activity” is often like trying to look, without the help of a mirror, at the nose on our face.

2) What is Knowing?

A) One thing that Meek stresses in the book is the body-soul unity of human beings. She doesn’t use this language in the book, yet repeatedly Meek calls us away from the modernist model of epistemology that sees the knowing enterprise as something hampered by human subjectivity in search of a sterile ”objective” mode of knowing.

B) In order to appreciate the richness of the human knowing process we must see that every instance of knowing involves 3 perspectives. Meek calls these perspectives ”the rules, the self, and the world.” John Frame refers to them in his Doctrine of the Knowledge God as the ”normative, situational, and existential perspectives.” Each of these serve as a way of viewing the whole of the knowing endeavor.

C) Meek defines knowledge in this way: ‘‘Knowing is the responsible human struggle to rely on clues to focus on a coherent pattern and submit to its reality.” The major sections of her book are organized according to this definition, unpacking it phrase by phrase.

Knowing is the process of integration, by which we focus on a pattern by and through the means of various clues, called subsidiaries, in the world, our body-sense, and in our standards for thinking.

Much of the pattern-making process is inarticulatable, and this more-than-words aspect of epistemic acts cannot be ignored, for it is crucial in our common, everyday process of knowing.

Through the integration process the clues now take on greater significance. No longer are they viewed as seemingly disconnected occurrences, but rather meaningful portions that make up a greater reality (ex: a magic eye puzzle). Yet, in a very real sense the pattern or integration, once achieved, retroactively throws light on the subsidiaries that made it up. The particulars retain their meaningfulness, but one that is enhanced; transformed.

These patterns now shape us, because, ideally, they connect us with a reality independent of ourselves. We come to see the fullness of the pattern when it’s truth is lived in, habited, thus extending ourselves out into the world by means of it.

3) What About Doubt?

A) Doubt can occur by one of two ways. Doubt creeps in when we either:

1) Stop using the clues as clues, which can lead us to believe that the clues are all they are (rather than as pieces of a puzzle), or…

2) We see only the focus and lose sight of how this conclusion or intergration was achieved by the use of subsidiaries, or clues. This can lead one to believe that simply a dogmatic answer is asserted without proper substantiation, thus the answer (i.e. the focus, the conclusion to a series of complex epistemic acts) seems pat.

B) Two things can be done to address doubt, but before we look at what these are we must realize that a huge contributing factor to doubt is the ”modern model” of epistemology which is aimed at infallible certainty. Certainty as purposed in the modern model was an impersonal, flat property sought of propositions that functioned in an all-or-nothing manner.

So, Meek contributes to developing a sound Christian apologetic for handling the existential crisis that haunts many when they realize that they have doubts. She even applies this to the story of John the Baptist when he sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one they were looking for (the Messiah) in Luke 7. She has some very rich pastoral applications.

Conclusion. I would recommend this book to any person interested in delving deeper into the area of epistemology. John Frame, in his review of the book says, “All in all, this is the best book on epistemology (let alone Christian epistemology) to come along in many, many years.  It is a must for any serious student of the discipline and, indeed, for ordinary people who are trying to get clear on how to know God.”

Piper in Germany: “Think Christ”

From Desiring God:

Right thinking about God exists for the sake of right feeling for God. This was the main point of John Piper’s Friday night message, “Think Christ,” at the Hirten Konferenz in Bonn, Germany.
Expanding upon Thursday night’s message, “Feel Christ,” Piper said that being satisfied in God will not glorify God if our satisfaction in God is not based on right thinking.

Piper gave 10 arguments for the indispensible role of right thinking and right knowing in the life of the Christian:

1. It is possible to have strong feelings and be lost if the feelings are not based on knowledge (Romans 10:1-2).
2. God has planned that thinking about the Bible is the means he uses to give understanding (2 Timothy 2:7).
3. Paul is given as an example of reasoning with the Bible (Acts 17:2-3).
4. Jesus assumes and requires that we will use logic in understanding both what is natural and what is spiritual (Luke 12:54-57).
5. Jesus refuses to deal with people who use their reason to conceal truth (Matthew 21:23-27).
6. Thirteen times in Paul’s letters, he asks the question, “Do you not know?” Paul assumes that if his readers knew something, they would see things differently, feel differently, and act differently.
7. The Bible tells us that Christ has given pastors and teachers to the church and tells us that they should be apt to teach—because God intends that the Bible be explained to ordinary folks who don’t have the time or ability to go as deep as God wants them to go. Christ would not have given teachers to the church if he thought they were not needed.
8. The Bible declares that we should proclaim the whole council of God (Acts 20:27). That implies that there is a coherent unified whole, a body of doctrine, that should be given to the church. It is not easy to find this whole council in a book with 1,500 pages! It’s mainly mental labor. Finding the unified biblical theology that the people need to know takes hard thinking.
9. The Bible is a book, which means that it must be read.
10. An example of how thinking and valuing and acting relate to each other is Matthew 7:7-12.

On the final point, John Piper said that thinking is necessary to get meaning from a text and to then present it to others. In particular he pointed to the first word in verse 12.

I read Matthew 7:12 for 25 years before I asked how it relates to the previous verse. Why does verse 12 begin with “so”? Because confidence that God will meet our needs is what frees us to take radical risks in loving other people. “Do unto others . . .” because you know God is going to answer your prayers and take care of you.

God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him. But that satisfaction in God does not glorify him unless it is based on right thinking and right knowing. God is all-satisfying because he’s a Father who gives us everything we truly need. And that kind of deep unshakeable satisfaction in our Father causes us to value things differently than the world. Therefore, we will love our neighbors. Right thinking with right feeling changes our behavior.

Wednesday Absence

This update is for my students who inquired about whether I’d be in on Wednesday (considering I just had my tonsils removed).

Nyack students: It looks like I will not be in on Wednesday. My ability to speak is come-and-go, and it is especially difficult in the morning. Please continue to keep me in your prayers for a speedily recovery. Please inform any other students, notably those in my Christian Worldview course.

Naturalism and Epistemology

Here is a part of a discussion I had with a friend a few years ago.  We’ll call the person I was writing to “Tom.” I thought this section might be profitable:

My original comment:

The [rise of modern science came about from the conviction of  the] Bible’s presentation of metaphysical realism teaches that the external world was really there, not merely a projection of our minds, and detailed study of it could lead to a true understanding of the world rather than merely biographical insights (opposed to eastern influenced worldviews that teach reality as maya, illusion.). This is grounded in the Biblical notion of a Creator/creature distinction.

Tom’s reply: “Lucretius & Democritus said this long before the Bible.”

Joe: Lucretius believed in a Creator/creature distinction? Great! Wait…no? Did he believe that the external world was really there? Great! I’m not saying that non-Christians can’t do that (well, not the creator/creature thing), but notice I spoke of the Christians REASON for such beliefs. They were grounded in their worldview, and it’s not just that Christians said, “yeah we believe that too!” but rather that they made perfectly sense within their worldview.

For instance, many epistemologists over the centuries have noted what i’ve called the problem of the knower. That is, how do we know that our measures, thoughts, etc match up to the external world? Our measures, observations, etc may  WORK (they may provide pragmatic usefulness), but how do we know that they lead to TRUTH. Personally, I can understand how on a materialistic worldview they lead to the first (pragmatic usefulness), but not how they can secure the second (truth).

You see, this is also called the subject/object problem. But, one of the reasons for the problem (and the issue here, again, is how does one justify, integrate, harmonize, provide the philosophical preconditions for, these assumptions. I’m not doubting that the assumptions are valid, I’m question the ground on which they are believed) is that people have ignored the issue of an epistemological norm or standard. Naturally, for the Christian this standard is the Bible, and lots of work has been done to unpack the philosophical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, etc from the teachings of the Bible, like John Frame’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (P&R Publishing), and Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford). This “norm” serves as a presupposition in the sense that it acts as the filter, lens (insert analogy here) through which evidence will be understood. This norm isn’t easily refuted or correct by a simply appeal to “the facts” either, because it’s the standard by which evidence is interpreted. This is why I addressed the issue of worldviews in the 1st (or 2nd?) part of the letter. This clash of worldviews was made explicit in the now infamous book review by Richard Lewontin:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, IN SPITE OF its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, IN SPITE OF  the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a A PRIORI adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.–(“Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review of Books, Jan. 4, 1997, pg. 31. Emphasis in original, though they were italicized, not caps)

This speaks volumes, and I’m convinced that this worldview clash is what dictates so many of the arguments against ID (for instance). It’s a commitment to methodological naturalism (and as Lewontin notes, and a priori commitment at that)

My original comment:

Fourth, the biblical anthropology of mankind created as the image of God coupled with a logos epistemology, which teaches that God has created the world with a rational structure and likewise has modeled our thinking to match (more or less) this rational structure, undergirds what I said above in point three. Since the same God created both me, and the world outside of me, there is a correlation between the too. In fact, in the early chapters of Genesis, mankind is told to cultivate the garden, which presupposes and assumes that he can learn about the outside world, because God made both it and him to do so.

Tom: Really… Genesis says so many things that are so absurd…I don’t want to spend the afternoon citing it? Adam and Eve(the fossil record again….)? A rib woman….? The fossil record doesn’t confirm any of this, yet you trust the scientific method which disproves all this.

Joe: “Tom,” the fact that you think the Genesis account of creation is irrelevant. I have said nothing about how I “feel” about an essentially atheistic universe. And as for Adam and Eve and the fossil record, let’s take a look at that. Let’s assume for a second that the Bible is true, and Adam and Eve were both historical, real-life, flesh and blood humans. How in the world (!) could the fossil record falsify the claim that Eve was created from the side of Adam? Considering that the BIble fully recognizes (and stays so explicitly) that ever other human comes from a woman, how would the fossil record show this? Do you expect to find (from the numberless fossils, human and non-human alike) the very Adam and Ever who walked the earth? How would you know it was them (they don’t have state ID!), etc? Your claims are again, comparing apples and oranges.