The Limits of Science

Last time out I posted a brief history of scientific endeavor. Of particular interest to us is the interaction of religion and science. Much more could be said on this issue, but suffice it to say that biblical religion should have no problem with the practice of science. The pursuit of knowledge of the physical world according to the scientific method is consistent both with the orderly nature of God and the expectation that mankind will exercise dominion over His creation.

Nevertheless, Christians are rightly uneasy with the atmosphere of scientific triumphalism which permeates today's intellectual climate. Is science truly a limitless field? Is there no question to which science cannot give the answer?

Various fields of study operate according to distinct ways of looking at the world. I once taught U.S. History in a high school. I have a fairly decent grasp of how historians look at the world. They follow certain guidelines; for instance, they endeavor to go to primary sources for their information, to look for sources from various perspectives, and to consider the social, religious, and political viewpoint of those sources while evaluating their legitimacy. These are excellent principles which, together with other similar rules, make up what might be called a "historiographic method."

I can only imagine the chaos which would ensue if a group of deranged historians were to elevate this method to the upper case and insist that their students pursue all knowledge according to the principles of the Historigraphic Method. "Well, your solution to that geometric theorem is interesting, but it isn't exactly a historiographic answer. Your geometry book is, after all, only a tertiary source. Have you read Euclid himself? In the original Greek? And have you accounted for his socio-economic biases? What did rival mathematicians have to say? Until you examine this question according to the principles of the HM you really can't know the answer, can you?"

"Absurd," you say, and you are right. There are clear limits to the application of historiography. Those limits are definitional to history – which is after all nothing more than the study of the recorded interactions of people and groups in the past. The historian cannot tell you as a historian how to calculate the volume of a sphere. If he knows the answer to such a question it is only because he has mastered some amount of information which was achieved by following another method entirely.

But we live in a day in which everyone wants to be a scientist. The humanities were supplanted by what were briefly called "social studies" before undergoing an apotheosis and emerging as "social sciences." The same trend is observable in other areas of our culture than academia. People whose grandparents once sought the advice of clergy now choose their advisors from among the ranks of "scientific" therapists. We seem to have stumbled unknowingly into an era in which it is presumed that scientific knowledge is the only true knowledge.

This implies either of two assumptions. Either all questions break down into two types - those with scientific answers and those with no answer at all - or else science is capable of answering any question which people are capable of asking!

The Christian is right to argue that these are absurd presumptions. Science is not a catch-all category governing the totality of knowledge. Rather, it is a particular way of looking at the world. It has validity, but it also has limits, and those limits are definitional. Just as a historiographic method is only valid in the study of history, so the scientific method has no valid application beyond the realm of what has been called "hard science." (Those would be the things you studied in science class as a child, not all the silly pseudo-science departments your university invented.)

Putting Science in a Box

In order to explore the limits of science, we must recall what science is. I wrote earlier that the scientific method "is a method based upon identifying questions about the material universe and proposing solutions to those questions which are both testable and verifiable. The proposed solutions, called "hypotheses," are then subjected to tests designed to prove them either true or false. When these tests have been repeated with sufficiently consistent results, the hypotheses
graduate to the level of theory - well established understandings of how things within the material universe work."

This method is definitional to science. Where this method has been followed, there is science; where it has been ignored or circumvented, "science" is a misnomer. Further, it is this method which has produced our confidence in science. We trust the chemicals which we put in our bodies at doctors' recommendations because we have confidence the testing which has proven them both effective and safe. We trust the bridges across which we drive because we have confidence in the structural principles derived from centuries of trial and error. The scientific method has both defined science and produced the current climate of implicit trust for scientists.

A consideration of this method leads us to certain conclusions about its rational limits. In order for the scientific method to be applied to any subject, scientists must be capable of getting their hands on that subject. Or, more properly, they must be capable of getting at least one of their physical senses on that subject. In the absence of observation and experimentation there is no science. The proper subjects of scientific inquiry must therefore be physical and immediate.

By "physical" I mean that the proper subjects of scientific inquiry must be part of the physical universe which is observable through our senses. Material things can be studied, as can the operations of various forms of energy. Mental abstractions, on the other hand, elude scientific observation. How could one build a scientific theory of justice, for instance? How could justice be subjected to experimental analysis? (Note that I am not talking about the best way to achieve ends which have been already agreed upon as just, but rather the more fundamental question of what is just.)

By "immediate" I mean that the proper subjects of scientific inquiry must be accessible. Take for instance the question of soil composition. The soil composition of earth is obviously a suitable study for scientific inquiry. Soil is material, and it can easily be subjected to scientific observation and experimentation. Today, however, scientists have become fascinated with the soil composition of Mars. This is a subject which is somewhat less immediate; until quite recently it was entirely inaccessible. Today, though, we are able to determine with a fair degree of accuracy the soil composition on Mars. What is not currently a fit subject for scientific inquiry is the soil composition of CoRoT-9b, a recently discovered planet in the Serpens Cauda nebula. At the moment we have only the capacity to identify its orbit and its size; absent new technology any statement on its soil composition would be rather speculative than scientific. In this example it is at least plausible that at some point in time a scientific answer might become possible, but at present the subject is not immediate, and science cannot speak to the issue.

It is important for persons living in an empirical culture to ask questions such as this. We need to understand what science can properly do if we are to evaluate all the claims which are presented to us as "scientific." At the same time, by asking and answering these questions we are actually limiting the reach of science. We cannot identify what science can do without identifying what it cannot do. We are, in other words, putting science in a box. We are examining the limits which are established for science by its own definition. Where observation and experimentation are impossible, science has exceeded its limits.

Yet we live in a day in which science is everywhere – both inside and outside the box! People are claiming to be engaged in "science" where there is not even an attempt to adhere to the method which defines science. This false nomenclature trivializes all true scientific endeavor while simultaneously deceiving the masses into assuming that the speculations of various dreamers have been scientifically proven!

We might assume that of all people, true scientists would be the first to insist upon putting science back into its box and properly defining its limitations. Indeed, some have insisted upon a distinction between "hard" (read "real") science and "soft" (read "not-really-") science. However, to truly reestablish a definition of "science" according to its method would be to admit that there are questions which cannot be answered scientifically. Science would lose its cultic status, and scientists would be demoted from the priesthood of modern man.

It thus remains to thinking persons to put science back in its box and to insist that any speculation which proceeds without the benefit of the scientific method no longer be referred to as "scientific."e the     

Put a Lid on It!

Let us begin. What things must we insist are not science? If the proper scope of scientific inquiry is those subjects which are both physical and immediate, than science has nothing to say about anything which is metaphysical or mediate.

The Metaphysical

The extra-scientific nature of spiritual beings seems obvious to most Christians, but not so to those who cannot imagine the existence of anything beyond the reach of science. Yuri Gagarin, the first cosmonaut, is attributed (perhaps falsely) with the quote, "I looked and looked but I didn't see God." The youngest child with a comprehension of basic theology would answer, "Of course you didn't; God doesn't have a body." In an age when everything is thought to be subject to scientific inquiry we are obliged to say this clearly: if a spiritual world exists, no scientific inquiry into could ever be possible. There can be no scientific view of God.

Furthermore, science can only tell us so much about the nature of man. Christians believe that a human being consists of body and spirit. Put in terms of our current discussion, people are made up of the conjoining of that which may be examined scientifically and that which may not. The human soul is spiritual in nature; science utterly fails to comprehend it. Perhaps the best example of this is the silliness which Freud wrote about dreams, but in fact the whole pseudo-science which is called "psychology" (literally "the science of the soul") ought to be rejected out of hand. That which is spiritual can never be subjected to observation and experimentation; another approach is necessary.

As I said above, scientific inquiry cannot help us at all in formulating our understanding of rational abstractions. Like justice, such things as love and honor can never be defined scientifically. Interestingly, there is no empirical proof for the existence or nature of logic. While science is necessarily logical and depends upon rules of logic for its existence, it can neither prove nor disprove the existence of logic.

This leads us close to the original meaning of "metaphysical." Science cannot really comment on those things which are foundational to both thought and existence. Science is strangely silent on the rather important question of whether or not we really exist, for instance. Science, like logic, must build upon accepted presuppositions about the universe – presuppositions which it can neither confirm nor deny. For instance, science presumes the constancy of physical interactions – what occurs in certain circumstances will always occur in identical circumstances. Without constants, there would be no science. Yet science can neither establish that there are constants nor suggest where they came from. Science has accomplished much, but it cannot build its own foundation.

The Mediate

Yet not all that is physical is within the reach of scientific inquiry either. The process of science is limited in ways that prohibit its examination of the metaphysical, but scientists are also limited in ways that prevent a thorough examination of the physical. Technology has enabled us to see what is much further off, but what we see mainly tells us how much we cannot explore. Stars examined through better telescopes have sometimes revealed entire galaxies, complex systems which defy our comprehension. There are similar limits to how small a unit of physical reality we may examine. Again, technology has helped but at the same time revealed our limitations. As we have discovered smaller and smaller units of matter we have also found complexity we had never imagined, both at a cellular and an atomic level.

Some years ago I read Modern Times, a colossal work by historian Paul Jones. It is a marvelous piece of history, but ends with the naïve assertion that genetic science will soon spell the end of history. Soon, Jones insists, our study of DNA will give us such a thorough grasp of human nature that all actions of men will be both describable and controllable. Not only is this theologically unacceptable and anthropologically simplistic, it demonstrates a complete failure to understand that science's triumphs always involve further challenges. History suggests that as we map DNA we are only going to discover smaller units of genetic material which must first be understood if we are to comprehend DNA itself. Furthermore, those smaller units will likely be more complex rather than less.

Science, then, can examine physical reality, but never in an ultimate sense. The very nature of science prevents it from telling us everything which can be known about any subject. Even where science produces answers, it always generates many more questions. Recently scientific apologists have taken to talking about "settled science." A more oxymoronic phrase could never be found. Science by its nature settles nothing; it advances to a clearer understanding which in turn uncovers greater mystery.

These are all limitations of a spatial nature, but scientific inquiry is also limited by time. While the essence of science is the prediction of the future (given certain circumstances, a certain result will occur), that prediction is greatly limited. A scientist can much better predict what a situation will be in the immediate future; the further into the future he reaches the less certain he is. Too many variables intervene. Everyone understands that a three day weather forecast is far more accurate than a ten day forecast.

No one can see the future, but scientists are even limited in seeing the past. Just as science is a discipline of the here, it is also a discipline of the now. No doctor can tell you with certainty the disease which killed George Washington. Medical historians can read the symptoms as they were recorded and engage in reasonable speculation, but they cannot have great certitude. The likelihood is that a modern doctor could diagnose Washington's illness, but he would need to have Washington in the here and now in order to examine him. The strength of scientific investigation is its precision, but the same precision is its major weakness. Distance – either in time or space – from the subject renders science impotent.

One further observation is necessary regarding the temporal limits of science. Scientists can only examine cause and affect where the span of the reactions involved is relatively short. They can only observe reactions which occur in units of time accessible to themselves. Experiments require even shorter expanses of time. It is truly impossible for scientists to speak authoritatively about physical reactions which allegedly take place over the course of centuries, let alone eons.

This has become rather embarrassingly obvious during the fizzling debate over climate change. It is arguable that while weather is a suitable subject for science, climate is not. If climates change, they do so over a period of time which not only exceeds any human lifetime, but which is far longer than the entire history of modern science. We simply have not been recording temperatures long enough to have any data worthy of a hypothesis. Our attempts to record temperatures over time have further demonstrated how difficult it is to gather consistent data through changing decades. The idea that we can scientifically observe change over the course of centuries is profoundly uninformed. Science, then, is limited to the now, not only in that it cannot see the future or the past, but in that it cannot see the slow.

* * * * *

These, then, are the limits of scientific inquiry. Those who exceed them necessarily abandon science and engage in speculation. It should be evident that society does not recognize these limits, and that in particular scientists only rarely recognize them. Disaster always awaits those who cannot acknowledge their limitations, and intellectual disaster has overtaken our society as we have elevated scientists to a godlike level of perfect understanding.

    

The History of Science

Twice now I have written on the subject of science. This is a matter in which every thinking person should be deeply interested. We live in a culture of empiricism - one in which it is assumed that scientific knowledge is the highest and best of knowledge. We must understand what science is and what it is not if we are to practice discernment in the modern world.

I have defined "science" as follows:

Science is a disciplined approach to the study of the material universe and of the causes and effects within it. Scientific knowledge is built by a rigorous application of the scientific method
to questions which arise about the nature of the material universe. The conclusions which are reached through a thorough and dispassionate application of that process may be called scientific facts.

The story of scientific advances has been the great theme of the history of the last few centuries. As scientific knowledge has accumulated, the manner in which the western mind thinks about science - and indeed about truth in a more general sense - has shifted dramatically.

Scientific Triumphalism

It has been said that the scientific method was invented by Christians. Certainly the great scientific advances which culminated in the Enlightenment were accomplished by men who identified themselves with the Christian religion. The correlation between Christianity and early scientific advance is simply a matter of historical observation. This does not necessarily mean that Christianity caused science (today's scientists might be a little less insufferable if they remembered more often that correlation does not necessarily imply causation), but it does demonstrate that scientific advance and the Christian religion have not been incompatible.

It is perhaps more accurate to say, though, that science and Protestant Christianity have not been incompatible. Prior to the great Reformation of the church there had been a history of some struggle between the magisterial Church of Rome and those who sought to investigate the physical universe in scientific terms.

The epistemology of the Church of Rome lends itself to the inhibition of science. The Roman doctrine of authority, in which the church is the arbiter of truth, allows that communion to persecute any scientist who advances ideas contrary to the opinions of the magesterium, regardless of whether or not those opinions are grounded in Scripture. Thus the oft-cited historical examples of the clash between religion and science - the repression of Copernican cosmology and the prosecution of Galileo - are Catholic more than Christian embarrassments.

In the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries the power monopoly of the church crumbled. First secular scholars discovered the existence of a pre-Christian corpus of knowledge from the ancient world, and then Christian scholars insisted that a restoration of the Christian religion would require the overturn of the authority of the magesterium.

It is unsurprising that scientific inquiry should flourish in the wake of the Reformation. The principal of sola scriptura freed the church from the necessity of defending every superstitious opinion of the past. Thus were scientists freed to pursue the investigation of God's creation without fear of prosecution by the inquisitors of the church.

In the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries this spirit of free scientific investigation spawned two twin epochs which further revolutionized the western world: the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

The Enlightenment, in brief, was a philosophical movement ordered around the scientific method. Enlightenment thinkers believed that they could best comprehend the world through a rational application of the mind to the evidence at hand. They were fascinated with the development and testing of various hypotheses. A shrinking world (even then!) allowed researchers in various countries to correspond and to repeat one another's research. Considerable scientific advances were achieved by men of a philosophic and scientific bent.

This research spawned the second great movement: the Industrial Revolution. Enlightenment thinkers were not interested in raw research so much as they were in the application of acquired scientific knowledge to the betterment of mankind. (An excellent example of the marriage of research to application may be found in our national hero, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, having been influenced by Enlightenment writers, was the first to carry out the experiments which demonstrated that lightning has the characteristics of electrical energy. No sooner had he completed his research than he was moving on to practical application; he soon had invented the lightning rod.)

As the newly popularized scientific method was applied to practical problems, the face of society was quickly transformed by the development of machinery. Of course this meant that many of the people who benefited from and even used the new machines did not understand the principles by which they worked. No matter - the machines were "scientific." People learned to trust the dictum that science works. If something is scientific, it may be trusted.

In the ensuing age - one in which science allowed ships to move without wind and carts to be drawn across land without horses - it is unsurprising that society began to manifest a profound sense of awe in the presence of scientific accomplishment. Science, it was assumed, could accomplish virtually anything. Even more sinister, society began to accept the idea that knowledge acquired through scientific inquiry was more valid than any other form of knowledge. If scientific knowledge is the most valid knowledge, then scientists are the ultimate arbiters of truth. Put another way, scientists have established a modern pantheon; they are our gods.

Science Vindicated

The advance of scientific inquiry in western culture has thus been accompanied by a progressive abandonment of biblical authority. If ultimate truth is scientific in nature, what room is there for revealed truth – particularly when that revelation is, at times, decidedly contrary to scientific norms? This presents the biblical Christian with a very real problem. How are we to explain the evident triumph of science? How are we to account for the great advances in technology which have transformed the world in the wake of the adoption of a scientific approach?

Two truths account for the considerable successes of the scientific approach. First, science works because God is a God of order. In order for the scientific method to produce any meaningful results, we must presume the existence of constants within the physical universe.

Science presumes that an identical cause in identical circumstances will always produce an identical effect. For instance, if you heat water to 100° C, in normal circumstances it will always boil. What happens one time will happen another, unless there are significant changes in circumstance (say a change of pressure). The boiling point of water one day will be its boiling point the next. This is a constant. Interestingly, while the scientific method can easily identify what a constant is, it cannot so easily prove the existence of constants. Science can presume that the boiling point of water will not change, and based upon that presumption it can identify the boiling point. Science cannot, however, prove that constants never change. At best it can demonstrate that the constant has not changed as of the last known experiment.

If science is going to be effective, the idea of constants must be valid. The physical universe must be governed by consistent laws. It is not surprising at all that the great scientific advances came in a culture which accepted the revealed truth that there is one God. In a world of many gods there could be no constants. The Scriptures reveal that there is one God, and that His is an orderly mind. It was natural for Christians to presume that the universe is generally governed by constants. They looked for them, and they found them. This is the first reason why science works: because the one true God is a God of order, and his universe makes rational sense.

The second reason has to do with the nature of man. God made mankind – male and female – in His own image and commanded them to exercise dominion over the earth. Man's rule over the earth was to be a reflection of God's rule; it was to be wise, meaning that man was meant to understand the world in which he lived. This is why the Scripture teaches that Adam was to engage in scientific inquiry – studying the animals and identifying their natural characteristics.

Since God's intent for mankind was that we would exercise dominion over the earth, He made us with the capacity for reason. Not only was the universe created as an orderly place, man was made with a capacity to perceive that order. Now it is true that this capacity has been damaged by sin. How else are we to explain the growing sense among the ancients (which is being duplicated in our own age) that various warring spirits or gods control events? How else could men who live in an orderly universe adopt such a superstitious mindset? Nevertheless, the image of God has only been damaged, not destroyed. Men retain the capacity to exercise their rational capacity and to perceive the order which God has placed in the universe.

It is in this way that we understand the significant successes of the scientists. Scientific advance is a consistent with both the Creator and His creatures; it reflects the orderliness of God and the rationality of those made in His image. However, the Christian must deny that scientific truth is the highest form of truth. Researchers must not supplant God. To do so would ultimately be the undoing of science. Without an orderly Creator, constants cannot be presumed, and science is certainly doomed. The biblical Christian understands this. As such, while he has no difficulty accounting for the great successes of the scientific community, he must reject scientific triumphalism. There are questions which science simply cannot answer. Some mysteries belong to God, and He will only reveal them through His Word.

* * * * *

There is, then, a profound disconnect between the way that a biblical Christian will view science and the way that our post-Christian culture views it. The great failing of Biologos and its ilk is an inability to recognize that difference at a philosophical level. The very idea that the Christian can think about science in the same manner as the atheist is a deeply unreflective position. This is why Biologos has been incapable of contributing anything sensible to the discussion between Christianity and science.

Perhaps the area in which the Christian and the atheist will most disagree is on the limits of scientific enquiry. Are there any limits to science, and if so, what are they?

True Faith

Last week I read an article about the increasing number of Americans who think that our President is a Muslim. Yes, I do read about politics, I just don't ever write about them here. And no, this post will be no exception. I have not the least interest in entering the discussion about the President's faith or lack thereof.

What interested me in the article were rather the blithe pronouncements of Dr. Clyde Wilcox of Georgetown University, who played the part of a preacher in this interview. His first quote was as follows:

"If the economy were resurrected from the dead like Lazarus, then you would see less of this."

Indeed. Like Lazarus. I think that was meant to be funny, but it certainly wouldn't lead me to write a blog post. The next statement was not a direct quotation:

Wilcox added that because of the viral nature of the Internet, any ideas, wrong or right, about a politician's beliefs, can grow exponentially.

I agree. Wilcox is in his area of expertise here - he is a professor of government, and this is the sort of cultural analysis that professors of government need to understand.

What made me stop and think was his final quote, though:

"It's a troubling thing. I think it would be good for all of us to stop invading the president's spiritual privacy. We don't know what anyone's true faith is. It doesn't tell us about what their true core values are."

Try to set aside the first two sentences, which are purely a matter of opinion. Wilcox offers two factual assertions here, and both should be fascinating to people of faith. First, a person's "true faith" is unknowable, and second, a person's "true faith" is no guide to his "true core values."

The first assertion sounds so reasonable in a world of hypocrisy. You can't know what a person actually believes, can you? Yet this is a notion which Christians should reject. In fact, if we do not reject it we are bound to veer into the meaningless faith of the radical antinomians. Faith will imply nothing about how a person lives. This is inevitable because the biblical response to this assertion is found in John 13:35. If a person's "true faith" is in fact genuine discipleship under Jesus, then discernable love for the brethren will result. You can recognize true faith, according to Jesus. It is known by the works of love which it produces.

Wilcox's second assertion is even more intriguing. What he is arguing is that faith claims (a person's religion) are at best an accessory. A person's "core values" are those priorities and commitments which determine action, yet Wilcox says that religion has nothing to do with these. This is of course a very modern idea; it lies at the heart of multi-faith dogma. No doubt every driver with a Coexist bumper sticker would agree with Wilcox here: it doesn't matter what your faith is. Core values are much more fundamental, and you can hang whatever faith trappings you want around your true value system.

Faith as an accessory is antithetical to John 13:35. Jesus taught that following would have profound consequences. He went so far as to say that to follow Him was to "take up a cross," to willingly accept suffering for His sake. Christ's followers must not accept a definition of "faith" which has no implications for core values.

I find that I disagree with Wilcox on one matter and agree on another. I do not think that any religious conviction which fails to shape a person's core values can properly be called "true faith." But I agree that such faith, whatever we call it, would be unrecognizable to anyone else.

Summer Series of Reformed Reading - Part 3

A new set of recommended books for this week.  Needless to say, if you'll consider spending some time reading these books over the next few weeks, we feel you'll not be disappointed.  In fact, you might find some of this material life-changing.
 

Hart and Muether - With Reverence and Awe 

When our church was first getting started, one of the most frequent reasons you’d hear from people who decided against our church was that they “didn’t like the music”.  So many church folks today have been brought up on a steady buffet diet of music that sounds more like Disney or a Rock concert than true worship.  And it’s no wonder, since the fact is, “our worship flows directly from our theology”, as the book says. Too many churches today lack this underpinning of good theology that is often more present in Reformed churches.  That’s no coincidence; as the book teaches – proper worship is properly prescribed by the bible.  But what exactly is ‘Reformed’ and how is it defined? This book outlines three ongoing debates of how Christians attempt to make that definition.  Somewhat similar to how historian Iain Murray’s book Evangelicalism Divided explains “how did we get here” regarding doctrine, preaching, priorities, and church practices, the book With Reverence and Awe does something similar with worship music. Far from being ‘legalisim’, the ideas prescribed in the book are an attempt at following the bible every step of the way with both lyrics and tunes.  The book is written in the last several years so you should have no problem reading it; pick yourself up a copy soon.

T.M. Lindsay - The Reformation

A book highly recommended by Spurgeon, The Reformation is a great introduction to the people, events, and ideas that made up the age of widespread revival. Although written nearly 130 years ago, The Reformation reads like a modern work, while still maintaining the density of content common in older ones. Instead of simply telling of the personalities and incidents of the Reformation, the book also explains the Reformers’ ideas and convictions which fueled the movement. The chapters are arranged geographically, tracing the roots of the Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican denominations. We also learn about lesser known regions it affected - Scandinavia and the Netherlands, for example. An especially helpful feature is the detailed timeline at the end of the book, which shows the events taking place in each region parallel with each other. 
 

Thomas Watson - The Godly Man's Picture

Of the Puritans, Thomas Watson has been considered one of the most readable. One of the reasons is that each work of his is filled with apt illustrations which illuminate the point he’s trying to get across. The Godly Man’s Picture, as the title would suggest, is no exception. In 24 sections, Watson sketches a portrait of the godly man, listing such important traits as:

-He prizes Christ

-He’s careful about how he worships

-He does spiritual things in a spiritual manner

-He strives to be an instrument in making others godly.

In addition to telling us what godliness looks like, Watson also explains what it is, why we should seek it, and how we can attain it. The work is useful for both instruction and encouragement in our walks with God. As the author points out, “Whoever has one of these characteristics in truth has everything in embryo.”

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The books in these weekly reviews are always a part of our church's library, but if you attend elsewhere - here are some good sources for purchasing most of the books that we recommend:  CVBBS, WTSBOOKS, RHB, Monergism, SGB, CBD, or Amazon.

Is The Bible The Only Book You Should Read?

Before we get too much further in our book reviews, I want to back-up a bit and discuss with you why you should read books (besides the bible) in the first place. The WWII pastor Martyn Lloyd-Jones expressed that attitude:

He suggested that "Christians should study their bibles and read the best books available, to get knowledge that is as deep and profound as possible". He was responding to Christians who say, "I am saved, and all is right with me; I am not interested in anything else. I am not a theologian, I do not want to read great books on theology".

Frankly, every church has some folks with this attitude including my church; I've even been at some past churches who consist of folks who ONLY appear to have that attitude. Some of these people will smugly say "I don't read the books of man, the bible is all that I need".  Well if I believed that was beneficial, I wouldn't bother doing these book reviews each week.

Sometimes these are the words of a entertainment-addicted generation of believers, who won't make time for the books that would drive them towards a deeper walk and a more thorough understanding of the scriptures. Christians in past centuries were readers, and they're not the only ones who valued books - add to that list the Apostle Paul.  In 2 Timothy 4:13 Paul says: "When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments."  Charles Spurgeon had this to say about the above verse:

We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even an apostle must read. Some of our very ultra Calvinistic brethren think that a minister who reads books and studies his sermon must be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher.A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot, and talks any quantity of nonsense, is the idol of many. If he will speak without pre-meditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men's brains - oh! that is the preacher.

How rebuked are they by the apostle! He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!

The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, "Give thyself unto reading". The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritan writers, and expositions of the Bible.We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master's service. Paul cries, "Bring the books" - join in the cry.

Recently, the Australian pastor Peter Barnes said:

Thus it was that this evangelical chain [of book readers] stretched from Sibbes to Chalmers, from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century. Today, the links might have fallen out due to too many evenings in front of the television. If modern Christian book catalogues are an indication of the state of the Church, we are in deep trouble. Knickknacks, gimmicks, music, videos and CDs receive most of the publicity. And that a book like The Prayer of Jabez could top the bestseller list is cause for a lament not far removed from that of Elijah (1 Kings 19).

More on this topic:

How books had a godly influence through the ages

No Use For Bible Commentaries", Part 1 and Part 2

We'll be back soon with more books recommendation!

I'm Not Hyper, Are You?

Sarah is out of town for a while, so we are taking a break from our summer Reformed Reading series for the next few days.  That's fine though, because as it turns out, I have a very important topic to bring to your attention.  And unless you have a bad case of one of those hyper deficit problems (HDD or HDHD, etc.), we'll be devoting this post to our own hyper-named disorder; we'll call it "HC" for the remaninder of this post (just to save me some typing).  But what the acronym really stands for is Hyper Calvinism.  Are you still listening, huh? (<-- ADD check).

If you've never heard of HC, you're not alone.  In previous centuries it was a bigger issue, primarily because Calvinism was more common in churches, and as you might guess by the name, HC is an unbalanced mutation of Calvinism; it is a biblical error. It's also directly significant (for our church on a smaller scale) because of a family that had been visiting us, and then later decided we were not for them because "we are Hyper Calvinists".  But we are not HC's; nothing could be further from the truth:

The 19th century British pastor Charles Spurgeon fought his own battle with Hyper Calvinism, which you'll find well documented in the Banner book entitled Spurgeon vs. Hyper Calvinism.  Spurgeon was greatly concerned with HC's negative effect on evangelism.  It's true that Calvinists have always believed in, and have given the free offer of The Gospel, HC's on the other-hand practice something other than what you'll find at our church.  Let me simplify it like this:  Suppose a Calvinist and an HC were chatting on deck of a cruise ship when suddenly a child falls overboard. The HC says "If God wants the boy saved, He'll just do it himself", meanwhile the Calvinist is already ripping off his shirt and shoes and jumping over the railing to save the boy, praying all the way down to the water for God's all-important Grace.

Now in the scenario above, I actually intended to speak of eternal life rather than a rescue from physical drowning death, but I think you get the idea.  The Calvinist truly considers his own human responsibility in the matter, just as the apostles did in the book of Acts.  Visit our church and you'll see folks spending  Saturday morning going door-to-door in our neighborhood distributing a Gospel video to the several thousand houses nearest to us.  We created this video ourselves, and it does not promote our church; it's primary objective is to explain the Gospel clearly.  My wife and others have spent many hours building relationships with our neighbors towards this end.  Many in our church have done the same with co-workers from their jobs, and one of our folks makes a point out of evangelizing to his fellow troops in the Army Reserve. And the list goes on.  Why bother doing all this? True Calvinists recognize reasons for evangelizing everyone, and as says Charles Spurgeon (who was a believer of the same Baptist Confession of Faith that our church is) - "If you are NOT concerned whether other people are saved, chances are you are NOT saved yourself."

There's a lot more about Hyper Calvinism that you ought to know about, and there just so happens to be a terrific webpage online for you to read.  It was written by Phil Johnson (Director of John MacArthur's Grace To You). Our pastor (Tom Chantry) once commented to me that Phil's HC page may be the best one he's ever encountered, so BE SURE TO READ IT.

See you next week, when Lord willing, Sarah and I will both be back with the next selection of books for your Christian bookshelf.

Why I Despise the Evening News

There are plenty of examples of inane babbling in our society, but it is difficult to imagine any forum more vapid than local TV news. I don't mean "local" as in Milwaukee, but rather the local news wherever you may happen to live or visit. It is all the same. In each of the hundreds of markets around the nation you will find three or four stations putting out the exact same selection of endless drivel and calling it news.

The reasons why "The News" has become unwatchable are legion. Of course there are the obviously fraudulent smiles pasted on the interchangeable over-coifed personalities (let us not call them "journalists"), and the hopeless attempts of the copy-writers to make every day in every city into an epic struggle between light and darkness. But I find those amusing. What drives me away from the evening news is its content.

Analyze the purpose behind the words used in your local news broadcast and you will find something like this: somewhere around seventy percent of the words consist of "banter" between the personalities which is intended (but wholly fails) to simulate human interaction. Another twenty percent are intended to convince you that you absolutely could not live without the crack team of reporters at Channel It-doesn't-matter-they're-all-the-same because they're bringing you "the news you need." Five percent of the words are teasers for the weather - the only reason anyone watches "The News." Another four percent are made up of platitudes which promote the deeply held core values of newspersons, profundities like "our environment matters" and "baby animals are cute." The remaining one percent of words tell you whether or not you will get your golf game in tomorrow.

If you have grown tired of this but are fixated on your outdoor sports, here's a hint. Go to the weather channel online; you'll get all the information you need without a former beauty queen nattering on for half an hour.

Sometimes "The News" is amusing. I will not soon forget the night we spent in Tacoma with a host who had not yet discovered weather websites. We sat through what should have been an excruciating half hour except that there was a BIG STORY that night. There had been a fire in a warehouse. No one was hurt, the fire was put out quickly, and relatively little damage had been done. No matter. The intrepid reporters from Channel I-don't-remember-and-I-never-really-cared rushed to the scene and spent twenty minutes inflating the rather peaceful scene. They were betrayed by their format's requirement for video. Three hopelessly static shots cycled past on the screen throughout the report. One of them - I kid you not! - was of the tiniest bit of water squirting out of a loose connection in a fire hose. Nevertheless we were treated to gripping copy about a "raging inferno" that "leapt" from room to room, "surging" onward and "incinerating" everything in its path.

Such entertainment has its value, but only for one evening every six years or so. It becomes depressing to think that every city in America has an unending supply of pretty-faced people with profoundly under-performing reasoning faculties, and that every one of them works for the evening news. Ted Baxter couldn't get a job today; he was far too intellectual.

Hidden Agenda?

Sometimes I worry about "The News." Sometimes I wonder just how willing the little local guys are to redefine reality - not out of basic incompetence but by design. I think by now everyone knows that the national media is nothing more than a conglomerate of left-wing political fronts, but the local guys seem too inept to be up to anything that sinister, right?

Allow me an anecdote. Years ago a disgruntled teenager set fire to the church I attended while I was in college. An alert neighbor called the fire department and the building was spared. Within an hour the firemen had been joined on the site by various church officers, and then a news truck arrived from Channel You-wouldn't-even-care-if-you-lived-in-Greenville. The eager young reporter pressed a microphone in the faces of several firemen before pulling the pastor aside.

He asked him, "So, I suppose you feel pretty lucky that your neighbor saw this fire, right?" (Good, journalistic, fact-finding question, you see? They should all have to attend law school, or at least be forced to watch "Matlock" once in a while.) The pastor shook his head and responded, "Well, no, Dirk (all TV reporters have had their names changed to something like "Dirk"), we don't feel lucky at all. We feel very grateful that God protected us tonight."

Dirk looked a little confused for a moment, but he shook it off and went away in search of a deacon, whom he promptly asked, "I guess you feel pretty lucky about the fire being caught so quickly?" The deacon smiled and said, "Of course we are grateful to the neighbor who called it in, but we don't feel lucky. God is watching over us."

Dirk grimaced and moved on, but among all the church officers he could not find even one who would say on camera that the church felt lucky. Eventually he sent in his story without interviews, but at the close he said, "Well Ted (anchors, apparently, don't need to change their names; they're already all named "Ted"), the people of this church sure feel lucky tonight…"

Odd, isn't it? It's almost as though someone had written Dirk's story before he ever got to the scene. It's almost as though he wasn't permitted to deviate from the pre-determined story line. Someone was afraid that Dirk might actually do some reporting!

A former colleague once told me about his brief stint in news radio. He had thought it would be a good thing for a Christian to get a foot in the door in journalism, but he quit when he realized he would never be allowed to develop stories. The stories were written by producers, and he was charged merely with gathering quotes. After too many times saying, "So, Edna, tell us how it felt when you heard your husband was missing in a natural gas explosion?" he decided he had had enough.

It was sad to hear that other media have followed "The News" down this path, but it confirmed what I have suspected: most news is pre-written. Of course that means that all perspective is quashed. Stories are not only selected but actually written on the basis of one perspective. If you are reading this blog, chances are that perspective is very different from yours.

Given the total lack of inquisitiveness in local newscasts, every story is liable to be trivialized. "The News" can ruin anything good that happens in a community, which is sad. Sometimes good things happen which ought not be ruined.

The Joshua Tree

I have a neighbor named Josh. Josh is seven years old and attends one of the local Christian schools. His parents are dedicated Christians who are teaching him and his siblings to honor God and to serve others. It's a great thing to have neighbors like that.

When we moved to this area, we toured thirty-one different houses before purchasing the very last one. We soon found that amidst the Romanist hegemony of Southeastern Wisconsin we had landed on a block with several solid, evangelical families. (No, Dirk, we don't feel lucky. See if you can get this: God was watching over us.)

Josh's parents were trying to think of ways that their kids could serve others, and the kids came up with the idea of giving away money out of their allowance anonymously. They did this a number of times. They would leave a note communicating the love of God and a dollar under a windshield. As it happens, Josh left one of his notes on a car in the YMCA parking lot. The note said that he had earned the money doing chores and that he hoped it would be a blessing to whoever received it. It closed with "God loves you, Josh."

The man who received this note took the dollar back into the YMCA and donated it, along with ten dollars of his own, to the Strong Kids Campaign. Someone at our local YMCA knows a thing or two about fund-raising, and they publicized this story. They started a new money tree drive and called it the "Joshua Tree." (Our local fund-raiser is evidently a U2 fan.) The ploy worked, and they soon had a few thousand dollars in the fund. A story ran in the "Waukesha Freeman" complete with a color photo of the note, but no one could figure out who Josh was.

Now we happen to know that the "Freeman" got fairly close to identifying Josh in their first story, but his parents made sure it didn't happen. They weren't looking for attention for their kids; they were trying to teach them to help others selflessly.

It turned out, though, that Josh's kindergarten teacher knew for a fact who had written the note when she saw it in the newspaper. Teachers get to know handwriting pretty well, but beyond that, she had also gotten notes from Josh that closed with "God loves you." And Josh always circles the word "loves." She gave up the story to the YMCA, and they had an opportunity to thank Josh for his kindness. He had a better opportunity to say that God is kind.

How "The News" Ruins Everything

You see what I mean? Good things happen in God's world. Too bad "The News" found out about it.

Yes, a truck from Channel 6-but-it-could-just-as-well-have-been-4-or-5-or-12 showed up at the YMCA to interview everyone. Josh's parents allowed him to speak, but his home, his family, and even his last name were conspicuously absent from the report. Nevertheless a certain degree of excitement reigned in their house. Josh would be on TV at 9:30 that evening.

My wife found out about it and told me we had to watch "The News." I said I would sit in the corner reading and try to ignore the teases for the weather. She could get my attention when the story began. Waiting for the story was a purgatorial experience. Apparently Channel 6 teases the human interest story along with the weather, so I was interrupted multiple times before the story ran.

I didn't catch the reporter's name, but he looked kind of like a "Dirk." He had lots of footage of a tree (not a Joshua Tree, but oh well). He also had footage of the note. I thought it odd that they were panning across the tiny image of the note until I realized that they rested on the circled word "loves" just as soon as the word "God" was out of frame.

At least this "Dirk" included his interviews in his final story. The nice fellow who got the note and turned it over to the YMCA, a man who is obviously too smart to work for a TV station, said he was pleased to know that there are children who are learning responsibility and selflessness in this world. The kindergarten teacher, who is probably way too smart to work in TV, talked about Joshua's penchant for writing notes about God's love. Finally Joshua, who is apparently way, way, way too smart to work for "The News," explained the whole story: "I was just trying to fill God up with glory."

Now, it doesn't take too high a level of inductive skill to realize that God just might have something to do with this story. Perhaps the story demonstrates that people who worship the God of the Bible are busy teaching their kids to think of others first. That's a fairly obvious truism which is demonstrated by many less dramatic events in everyone's daily life. It was not, however, the pre-written story from Channel 6.

Their "Ted" closed out the story by saying, "You know, a story like that really renews your faith . . . in mankind."

Bulletin: Local news outlet totally misses the point again; pictures at eleven. Back to you, Ted.