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In endeavoring to destroy or minimize the social distinctions between the sexes, and rebelling against the influences of the Judeo-Christian worldview, feminists end up dragging themselves down more than they lift themselves up. Consider Genesis 2.18-24:

Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

"This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (ESV)

In the same chapter, the creation of man gets a single verse, describing how the first man is formed by God from the dust of the ground. But the creation of the first woman becomes a sort of story by itself.

In the first chapter of Genesis, God's creative work is described as "good" six times and "very good" once. But for the first time in Scripture, something is described as "not good," which is that man is alone, without "a helper fit for him."

The idea from the context is that there is no helper suitable for man because there is nothing like him in the animal kingdom. [1][2] And so the "animal parade," in which God brings the animal kinds to the man to see what he will name them, with the additional purpose of helping him to see that there is nothing in the lower orders like him, and thus nothing capable of being a suitable counterpart to him.

The purpose of emphasizing this fact to Adam was, I believe, to help Adam fully appreciate the gift he was about to be given - his wife, the first woman. This supposition is borne out by the context, for after Adam meets his newly created bride, he exclaims:

"This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."

Notice the expression "this at last" which is captured by a few translations. This evidences that Adam "got the point" of the animal parade. Under this realization, he meets his bride, and she fills the void of companionship that could only be filled by someone who was fundamentally like him.

But why all the drama of removing the rib? Why does not God just make woman from the dirt, as he made the man? The reason is clear from the context: this emphasizes that she is indeed like him, and thus a suitable companion for him. The differences, in characteristics and in physical makeup, are important. But they are both fundamentally the same in constitution - they are both human, made in the same image and likeness of God. (1.27) He must recognizes that she is, indeed, "bones from his bones" and "flesh from his flesh."

But why does man need woman? Why is it "not good" that he be alone? There are at least several reasons that could be given. The first is obvious from the context: without the genders there is no family and no procreation, and thus man cannot fulfill God's intention that humanity should multiply and fill the earth, serving as lords and stewards over God's beautiful creation. And man needs someone to help him do the tasks God has laid out for him, to be his "helper."

Another is to provide him with companionship. The writings of Solomon and the other sages bear out how the virtuous woman has the power to make a home more than simply a place to live, and how that she brings both joy and pleasure to her husband.

There is another benefit which is not mentioned here, but receives treatment in later Biblical teaching, especially in the New Testament epistles. A man finds, in caring for his wife, a higher satisfaction than when caring simply for himself and for his own needs.

As Christ taught us that "it is more blessed to give than to receive," so Paul writes (in the context of ecclesiastical discussions):

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Ephesians 5.25-33)

The reader will forgive my lengthy exposition, but it was necessary to make this point: when the feminist throws out the Biblical perspective on gender, she gives up the significance of what it means to be female. She removes herself from that special place she has in the created order which makes her an exalted object of love and attention, a source of joy, and a reason for thanksgiving. And she does this, all so that she can achieve this so called ideal of being treated exactly the same as men.

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[1] An interesting Vulgate translation: faciamus ei adiutorum similem sui with similis meaning "like, similar, or resembling."

[2] Contra evolutionary dogma.

According to creationist and biologist Robert W. Carter, the reason that evolutionists need junk DNA is this: the alleged generation of genetic information is such a slow process that for the generation of our genetic material to fit into a feasible time line, most of our genetic material must be non-functional. In other words, evolutionists are attempting to simplify the scope of their problem by reducing the amount of genetic information they have to explain.

In Carter's own words:

Based on the work of J.B.S. Haldane and others, who showed that natural selection cannot possibly select for millions of new mutations over the course of human evolution, Kimura developed the idea of "neutral evolution". If "Haldane's Dilemma" were correct, then the majority of DNA must be non-functional. It should be free to mutate over time without needing to be shaped by natural selection. In this way, natural selection could act on the important bits and neutral evolution could act randomly on the rest. Since natural selection will not act on neutral traits, which do not affect survival or reproduction, neutral evolution can proceed through random drift without any inherent "cost of selection". The term "junk DNA" originated with Ohno, who based his idea squarely on the idea of neutral evolution. To Ohno and other scientists of his time, the vast spaces (introns) between protein-coding genes were (exons) just useless DNA whose only function was to separate genes along a chromosome. Junk DNA is a necessary mathematical extrapolation. It was invented to solve a theoretical evolutionary dilemma. Without it, evolution runs into insurmountable mathematical difficulties. [1]

Then he comes to the heart of the matter:

Junk DNA is not just a label that was tacked on to some DNA that seemed to have no function, but it is something that is required by evolutionary theory. Mathematically, there is too much variation, too much DNA to mutate, and too few generations in which to get it all done. This was the essence of Haldane's work. Without junk DNA, evolutionary theory cannot currently explain how everything works mathematically. Think about it; in the evolutionary model there have only been 3-6 million years since humans and chimps diverged. With average human generation times of 20-30 years, this gives them only 100,000 to 300,000 generations to fix the millions of mutations that separate humans and chimps. This includes at least 35 million single letter differences, over 90 million base pairs of non-shared DNA, nearly 700 extra genes in humans (about 6% not shared with chimpanzees), and tens of thousands of chromosomal rearrangements. Also, the chimp genome is about 13% larger than that of humans, but mostly due to the heterochromatin that caps the chromosome telomeres. All this has to happen in a very short amount of evolutionary time. They don't have enough time, even after discounting the functionality of over 95% of the genome--but their position becomes grave if junk DNA turns out to be functional. Every new function found for junk DNA makes the evolutionists' case that much more difficult.

So, as I understand it: the more functionality we find in our "junk DNA," the more difficult it becomes for evolutionists to explain how that genetic information could be generated inside the time lines that they laid out for us. How dreadfully inconvenient.

[1] Robert W. Carter. The slow, painful death of junk dna. Journal of Creation, 23(3):12-13, 2009.

A poem, from Ariston:

Be of good courage: God will still preserve
And greatly help all those who so deserve.
If no promotion waits on faithful men,
Say what advantage goodness offers then.
'Tis granted -- yet I often see the just
Faring but ill, from ev'ry honour thrust;
While they whose own advancement is their aim,
Oft in this present life have all they claim.
But we must look beyond, and wait the end,
That consummation to which all things tend.
'Tis not, as vain and wicked men have said,
By an unbridled destiny we're led:
It is not blinded chance that rules the world,
Nor uncontrolled are all things onward hurled.
The wicked blinds himself with this belief;
But be ye sure, of all rewards, the chief
Is still reserved for those who holy live;
And Providence to wicked men will give
Only the just reward which is their meed,
And fitting punishment for each bad deed.

This brief post on Bible design and bonding proved helpful to me:

http://jmarkbertrand.typepad.com/bibledesign/2007/09/a-guide-for-beg.html

Theophilus of Antioch was a Christian apologist who lived shortly after the Apostolic period, and so as an early writer his views have much significance for the Christian theologian. In a letter to Autolycus the pagan, Theophilus lectures on the necessity of faith. He writes specifically here in regard to the resurrection:

But you do not believe that the dead are raised. When the resurrection shall take place, then you will believe, whether you will or no; and your faith shall be reckoned for unbelief, unless you believe now. And why do you not believe? Do you not know that faith is the leading principle in all matters? For what husbandman can reap, unless he first trust his seed to the earth? Or who can cross the sea, unless he first entrust himself to the boat and the pilot? And what sick person can be healed, unless first he trust himself to the care of the physician? And what art or knowledge can any one learn, unless he first apply and entrust himself to the teacher? If, then, the husbandman trusts the earth, and the sailor the boat, and the sick the physician, will you not place confidence in God, even when you hold so many pledges at His hand? For first He created you out of nothing, and brought you into existence (for if your father was not, nor your mother, much more were you yourself at one time not in being), and formed you out of a small and moist substance, even out of the least drop, which at one time had itself no being; and God introduced you into this life. Moreover, you believe that the images made by men are gods, and do great things; and can you not believe that the God who made you is able also to make you afterwards? [1, 91]

It is obvious here from Theophilus' illustrative explanation that he understands faith to be fundamentally the same thing as trust. The significant aspect of his presentation here is not, however, his presentation of faith per se, but his presentation of the basis of faith.

There is no evidence here of the modern understanding of "faith," that damnable idea that faith is essentially a blind commitment to the least logical course of action. In contrast, Theophilus presents a reasonable faith, in which one trusts because it makes the most sense to do so. As Theophilus would say, you trust yourself to the physician because you know the physician is skilled in healing, and you trust yourself to the boat because you know that the boat was designed to float. And why, says Theophilus, should you believe that God will raise you from the dead? Because God has created you, and formed you in the womb, evidencing his power and capabilities. So in short, you have faith in God regarding the resurrection because of the reality that he is your trustworthy Creator.

If you will bear with me, I will transition into another very important concept: the fundamental doctrines of creation (general revelation) and the existence of God are not articles of faith. That is, it does not take faith to believe that there is a Creator God. Rather, this fact is evident from all the creation that we see and experience around us (Romans 1.18-20.) This basic understanding is implied even in the same writing of Theophilus:

Consider, O man, His works,--the timely rotation of the seasons, and the changes of temperature; the regular march of the stars; the well-ordered course of days and nights, and months, and years; the various beauty of seeds, and plants, and fruits; and the divers species of quadrupeds, and birds, and reptiles, and fishes, both of the rivers and of the sea; or consider the instinct implanted in these animals to beget and rear offspring, not for their own profit, but for the use of man; and the providence with which God provides nourishment for all flesh, or the subjection in which He has ordained that all things subserve mankind. Consider, too, the flowing of sweet foutnains and never-failing rivers, and the seasonable supply of dews, and showers, and rains; the manifold movement of the heavenly bodies, the morning star rising and heralding the approach of the perfect luminary; and the constellation of Pleiades, and Orion, and Arcturus, and the orbit of the other stars that circle through the heavens, all of which the manifold wisdom of God has called by names of their own. He is God alone who made light out of darkness, and brought forth light from His treasures, and formed the chambers of the south wind, and the treasure-houses of the deep, and the bounds of the seas, and the treasuries of snows and hail-storms, collecting the waters in the storehouses of the deep, and the darkness in His treasures, and bringing forth the sweet, and desirable, and pleasant light out of His treasures; "who causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth: He maketh lightnings for the rain;" who sends forth His thunder to terrify, and foretells by the lightning the peal of the thunder, that no soul may faint with the sudden shock; and who so moderates the violence of the lightning as it flashes out of heaven, that it does not consume the earth; for, if the lightning were allowed all its power, it would burn up the earth; and were the thunder allowed all its power, it would overthrow all the works that are therein. [1, 90-91] [2]

Theophilus couches his explanation here in a lot of Biblical language, but nevertheless his point here is that God makes himself known to us through his work in creation. This is ultimately the basis for our faith: the God that makes promises to us in his written word is the same God that has revealed himself to us through his glorious creation.

[1] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, editors. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 2. Eerdmans, 1962.

[2] A brief note on Theophilus' last argument: it is evident that Theophilus does not have the clearest understanding of the physics of lightning, but this detracts nothing from his argument. His point is that if God had made the lightning more powerful than it is, it would destroy creation. As the power of the lightning is restrainted, it is evidence of balance and order in God's delicate universe.

I considered an alternative title to this post, which was "Pro-choice Advocates: Eternally Obscuring the Issue." But somehow "Perpetually Missing the Point" sounded a little more natural to my ear.

To get to classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, I park on the far side of a university parking lot and then walk for about five minutes across the parking lot and up a hill. During one walk last week I noticed a small car (liberals seem to like small cars) with a sticker on the right side of the bumper stating boldly:

FREEDOM

MEANS

CHOICE

Under this declaration was the address of some abortion-promoting organization, and of course on the opposite side of the bumper was the customary Obama '08 memorabilia.

Liberals are fond of borrowing conservative and religious terminology, beating them over peoples' heads in quick political statements, and then tossing away or completely ignoring the ideology behind the words. This would be a classic example.

Anyone who really cares about the idea called freedom understands what it means to live in a free society. In a free society, we strive to allow people to exercise freely certain fundamental rights that belong to each of us as human beings. However, we understand that we can not allow one person exercising his rights to trample over the rights of another person. From the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The fundamental reason that conservatives are opposed to abortion is that they believe the fetus or embryo in a mother's womb is a living human being, and as such, that being's most fundamental right - the right to Life - must be protected. In contrast, pro-choice advocates represent themselves as protecting a woman's right to exercise control over her own body, implying (when it is not stated outright) that the organism growing inside of her is not really human nor truly a distinct individual.

This is the heart of the debate. The "Freedom Means Choice" message, on the contrary, is a deceptive trick - a sleight of hand, if you will - meant to distract from the real issue.

The pro-choice movement needs to keep people distracted if legalized abortion is going to survive in the United States. It is a bit speculative of course, but I suspect that if every mother considering having an abortion took a serious, deep look at the question of whether or not her child is a human being, the periodic number of abortions in the country would drop to a small fraction of the original. I think that the average woman, after looking at reconstructions of the child in the womb, reading about the intricacies of each stage of development, listening to a young heartbeat, and pondering the philosophical implications of the decision, would not have the willpower needed to have her child crushed to pieces and sucked out of her womb with a vacuum pump.

Whenever I hear the word "uniformitarianism," the first image that comes to mind are layers of sedimentary rock, like those of the Grand Canyon. Doubtlessly this is because it has been pounded into my mind since grade school that each of those layers represents millions of years of earth's history.

Grand_Canyon_2.jpg - released into the public domain by Jon Sullivan, pdphoto.org The views of the author are not endorsed by Jon Sullivan.

Recently, however, I read an interesting article in the Journal of Creation by Ariel A. Roth, a biologist and student of sedimentary geology. [1] I found the article interesting not because I am an expert in geology but because the fundamental concepts appealed to my common sense as a layman. My summary of his article:

In Ariel A. Roth's article on "flat gaps," Roth indicates that the flat gaps, or paraconformities, between sedimentary sequences (layers) are a severe problem for long-age, uniformitarian geology. He argues that the large periods of time allegedly indicated by the gaps would produce evidence of erosion in the removal of "vast depths of sediment" and the production of "a highly irregular land surface," but such evidence is not present. He indicates that flat gaps "are very difficult to explain within the long-age uniformitarian paradigm and severely challenge the concept of millions of years" but that they "provide strong evidence for a young earth and are easily explained within its paradigm of the global biblical Flood."

So, a paraconformity (a type of unconformity) is a gap between parallel sedimentary layers. These gaps are supposed to represent millions of years where erosion took place or build-up did not take place. The problem, writes Roth, is that if these paraconformities really represented such long periods of time, they would not be as straight or uniform as they are. The many normal forces of erosion that are at work today, which often make our own land surfaces so complex and irregular, would also have been at work during the time represented by these gaps. And so these paraconformities would not, as a general rule, be straight or uniform but rather highly irregular in direction and shape.

Biblical creationists believe these sedimentary layers are more convincingly explained by the global flood described in Genesis. That is, when God miraculously covered the entire planet in water, that same water stirred up massive amounts of rock and minerals and then, through natural processes, laid those materials back down into the fairly even and orderly layers that are visible today.

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[1] Ariel A. Roth. "flat gaps" in sedimentary rock layers challenge long geologic ages. Journal of Creation, 23(2):76-81, 2009.

Classes and homework have kept me quite busy lately. Between that and teaching Sunday School, it has been hard to find time to put out the hardcore theology. Here is a small song from YouTube to hold you over until I am able to put something together:

Alison Krauss -- In the Palm of Your Hand:

A great fire struck Rome in A.D. 64, doing considerable damage. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, a rumor arose among the people that Nero was responsible for the fire. To dispel the rumor, Nero blamed the Christians and persecuted them. I will quote below the account given by Tacitus, as translated in Documents of the Christian Church by Henry Bettenson:

But all the endeavours of men, all the emperor's largesse and the propitiations of the gods, did not suffice to allay the scandal or banish the belief that the fire had been ordered. And so, to get rid of this rumour, Nero set up as the culprits and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called Christians. Christus, from whom their name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. Checked for the moment, this pernicious superstition again broke out, not only in Judaea, the source of the evil, but even in Rome, that receptacle for everything that is sordid and degrading from every quarter of the globe, which there finds a following. Accordingly, arrest was first made of those who confessed [sc. to being Christians]; then, on their evidence, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of arson as because of hatred of the human race. Besides being put to death they were made to serve as objects of amusement; they were clad in the hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs; others were crucified, others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed. Nero had thrown open his grounds for the display, and was putting on a show in the circus, where he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or drove about in his chariot. All this gave rise to a feeling of pity, even towards men whose guilt merited the most exemplary punishment; for it was felt that they were being destroyed not for the public good but to gratify the cruelty of an individual.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that the John 1.1 does not teach that Jesus is God and that the verse is properly translated with "a god."  One of the arguments they make is from the wording and context of the passage:

Consider what John further writes in chapter 1, verse 18: "No man has seen [Almighty] God at any time." However, humans have seen Jesus, the Son, for John says: "The Word [Jesus] was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory." (John 1:14 KJ ) How, then, could the Son be part of Almighty God? John also states that the Word was "with God." But how can an individual be with someone and at the same time be that person? Moreover, as recorded at John 17:3, Jesus makes a clear distinction between himself and his heavenly Father. He calls his Father "the only true God." And toward the end of his Gospel, John sums up matters by saying: "These have been written down that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God." (John 20:31) Notice that Jesus is called, not God, but the Son of God. This shows how John 1:1 should be understood. Jesus, the Word, is "a god" in the sense that he has a high position but is not the same as Almighty God. [1, p.203]

These objections are not difficult for anyone with a basic and accurate understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. First of all, orthodox Christianity has always held that Jesus Christ was born with two natures, that is, that he is both fully God and fully man. The nature of God is immaterial and invisible, while the nature of man is material and visible. It is this unique situation of Christ, as the perfect God-man, which allows him to be both visible to us as a man, but also be the immortal, invisible God.

The next few sentences of Jehovah's Witnesses' argument betray either a complete ignorance of the accurate doctrine of the Trinity or a willing disregard for it. Trinitarians do not have to explain how an individiual can "be with someone and at the same time be that person" because that is not what Trinitarians believe. Trinitarians believe that the Father is a separate person from the Son but that the Father and the Son share the same essence or nature. The Father is not the same person as the Son, but they are both fully God. The Word described in John 1.1 is"with God" in the sense that the Son is with the Father, and the Word "is God" in the sense that he shares in the same divine nature as the Father. Such a concept may be difficult to understand, but it is not a logical contradiction, unlike the straw man argument to which the Jehovah's Witnesses are objecting.

Regarding the last statement in the paragraph quoted above, it should be noted that the emphasis on the title "Son of God" in the Fourth Gospel is not an implicit denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, but rather an important introduction to it. By focusing on this unique Father-Son relationship, the Evangelist is able to express that the Father and the Son are different persons while also indicating that they share the same nature, just as a human father and a human son share the same nature -- the human nature.


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What does the bible really teach?
From the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Brooklyn, New York, 2005.