Augustine and 20th Century Cosmology

I found this fascinating (click title to see). Some might argue, but it seems as though it's a victory for Christianity. How big? Don't know.

This is from the author's intro:

...Augustine had presaged the entire body of 20th century cosmology in 400AD, as he point-by-point refuted the materialist metaphysics of his day. His contributions lasted 1500 years, but were ultimately rejected by 19th century physics, who viewed his defeat as a defeat for Christianity. However, 20th century physics vindicated Augustine point-by-point, making physicists very uneasy. This leaves 21st century physics in a crisis, unable to stand on materialism, and unwilling to accept Augustine.

It reminds me of another quote:

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. For the past three hundred years, scientists have scaled the mountain of ignorance and as they pull themselves over the final rock, they are greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. (Robert Jastrow)

Apparently one of these theologians is Augustine!

If you are interested in philosophy you'll like reading this article. It has a pretty interesting overview of the applicable philosophers through history. The truth is that Augustine is a remarkable man. Certainly one of the world's greatest philosophers and arguably the greatest christian philosopher.

Upon reflection, I wonder if Augustine's cosmology can be viewed as a prediction that comes from a Biblical creation model. As you know, one of the traits of a strong scientific theory is its ability to generate accurate predictions. So perhaps this is the first 'prediction' made by a Biblical Creation Theory? Does the fact that the prediction came 1600 years before the confirmation give it more veracity?

School Fee Update

A few posts below I described my heartburn over mandatory school fees in our local school district. I wanted to give an update.

Yesterday I was able to get the principal on the phone and we talked for a good few minutes. One of my primary goals was to keep things pleasant. That was probably my 2nd goal, the 1st being to find out her stance on these fees and figure out what I might need to do next to resolve the issue.

Well, both goals were met. I left a few things unanswered because the question was really one for the school board to answer, not the principal, and because I wanted to keep the discussion pleasant so I chose not to be my normal analytical self and do a lawyer-style cross-examination. So what was the outcome?

She readily admitted that it was illegal to charge mandatory fees. After some explanation as to the need for the funds, she told me that I could decide whether to pay or not pay. I was impressed with the principal's candor. She all but admitted that she hoped that word wouldn't get out and everyone stop paying fees because it would put the school in a budget crisis (worse than it already was).
She also talked about the budget squeeze, teachers paying for supplies with personal funds, overcrowding...
Note that none of this information was germaine to the question at hand: namely the legality of the fees.

She was adamant in assuring me that there was no penalty to the student for not paying. Apparently her teachers don't know this because I do know that they have threatened my kids with this (that could be dangerous for her to admit because it would be grounds for legal action or disciplinary action). Also, she was somehow aware of the fact that my child had been made to circle the parking lot during gym class (I never brought it up, she did) and indicated that this was not punishment, but the result of overcrowding. However, my daughter was one of only 3 doing so and it was the result of not having her uniform, so the principal must have been unaware of what the teacher was doing.

Apparently this had been put to a stop last week anyway. So it might be a case of fixing the problem before the complaint then declaring it to not be a problem.

The school district just to the north of us assesses school fees too (much less than ours, perhaps because of a larger tax base?). This district sent home a note indicating that the fees were not mandatory and hoping that parents would choose to pay so that the educational experience at the school could be improved. I like this approach far more than the underhanded approach of our district which gives every indication that a voluntary fee is mandatory (even going so far as to threaten the kids with consequences).

So what to do? Well, now that she's admitted that I have the choice I'll consider paying as a charitable contribution to the school but I don't know yet.
I'm still going to follow up with their teachers on the next parent night and ensure that the kids haven't been penalized grades as a result.
I know the school board is the one that authorizes these fees, but the State Board's policies don't allow local boards to do this without permission. I am assuming they violated that policy but don't know for sure.

I'll consider talking to the local newspaper to see if they are interested in writing a story. I think it would be best to approach them next summer so that the story would hit before next year's fees are charged.

Oh, I might also decide to buy a gym uniform for one or both of my kids. Assuming they are not mandatory (despite their 'mandatory' status it's not legal to force their purchase), it might still be a good idea for my kids to avoid sweating up their school clothes.

Lawyers lay out arguments in evolution trial

For my students...read this article about a court case going on over Intelligent Design (ID). Post comments with the following observations (click the title to link to the article):

• How are issues of worldview forming the opinions and comments in this article?
• See any fallacious argumentation?
• What presuppositions can be seen in the arguments on either side?
• Do you detect any bias in the reporter writing the story?

Note that you'll need to read this to get some important details by which to evaluate the article.

How to spot flawed logic

There are a number of logical fallacies that are committed regularly by those who endeavor to defend a position or debate a topic. These errors of logic can be seen especially around election time as political candidates use their whit to try to convince people of the truth of their claims. Being able to discern good arguments from bad arguments is necessary in the quest for truth.This skill is all the more important when wrestling with the big social issues of the day. ie. the debates over abortion or homosexuality.

False Dilemma: A false dilemma is when a person sets up an either or distinction that really isn't one. One example common to the evolution/creation debate might go like this:
Christian: "Evolution has been shown to be impossible, therefore you've got to admit that God created life."
Evolutionist: "That's a false dilemma, if evolution is impossible then why can't I believe that aliens created life on earth?"
Or it could go this way:
Evolutionist: "Since the Bible has been discredited then evolution is obviously the mechanism by which life came to exist"
Christian: "That's a false dilemma! Even IF the Bible were discredited, God could still be the creator of life"

Argument from Ignorance: This is arguing that something not yet proven to be true, must be false or something not proven false must be true. Christians are often accused of this one when we argue that God created life because scientists haven't been able to show how life began. In this situation it's often called a 'God of the gaps' argument because we are arguing for the existence of God based on gaps in current scientific theory. This criticism has merit unless evidence is being put forth that actually does support special creation (such as the irreducible complexity argument). Here's how an exchange might happen:
Creationist: "I know that God created life because science has no idea how new body plans emerged via genetic mutations"
Evolutionist: "Just because science hasn't answered that yet, doesn't prove it's true. That's a God of the gaps argument."
(note: here the creationist's error was concluding creation was proven by science's failure. It would have been fine to criticize evolutionary theory as being incomplete and not worthy of being called 'fact' but going further commits the fallacy in question).This fallacy is really a special case of the false dilemma because it's really saying: "either X is proven or X is false" rather than allowing for X to be true, just not yet proven.

Slippery Slope: This is a logical fallacy that uses if-then logic. This occurs when a person argues through a list of increasingly unlikely events to a logical conclusion. How about an example?
"If evolution isn't taught as fact, then biology classes will be teaching religion. Then it won't be long until we have a theocracy in our country and our freedoms are taken away."
You can find this reasoning everywhere these days in regard to the debate over evolution in biology textbooks. Christians use it too in regard to abortion.
"If we allow abortion, then partial birth abortion, soon they'll allow the killing of babies up until they're brought home from the hospital. Then they'll allow the killing of anyone who's inconvenient."
It's important to note that these statements may be true, they just aren't NECESSARILY true. They might be a valid prediction, but they are a logical fallacy simply because they MIGHT NOT be true. For example, is it automatically true that teaching evolutionary controversy will result in teaching Bible in biology classes? Of course not (although it could possibly happen in some...).

Complex question: This is when two propositions are joined together inappropriately. For example:
"Do you support freedom and the right to bear arms?".
Basically the question is phrased in a way that requires you to either agree or disagree with two separate statements as one unit. An interesting example of this is the old stand-by party joke:
"Hey Jack, yes or no...have you stopped beating your wife?"
Yes implies he used to, and no implies he still does. In effect the question being asked is:
"Did you beat your wife? and do you still beat her?"
You will often see this one in campaign slogans: "Vote for Mr. Jones and save our economy".

Mandatory School Fees

This year two of my children went back to public school after 4 years of homeschooling. Back when they attended originally I remember there being incessant fundraisers and school supplies lists. But this time around there are actual cash fees to be paid.

For as far back as I can remember, I have always understood mandatory fees to be incompatible with the concept of a public education. The 'public' refers to the fact that the public at large pays for it via taxation, and that education is made available to all people regardless of their economic situation (our country's taxation laws accomodate various economic situations). Therefore, a mandatory school fee would result in making a public education unavailable to some who are underprivileged.

I don't claim to be underprivileged in the least. My beef with fees has nothing to do with my ability to pay, rather it has to do with the basic principles underlying the public school system in our country. You can argue that it's not fair for families without children to pay, via taxes, for my kids education. You aren't logically or morally wrong to do so, but you must realize you are then advocating a private system of education, not the public one that our country has chosen to implement. Our system is what it is, and unless our society wants to revisit that choice, then a public education is incompatible with mandatory fees.

In fact, Tennessee state law agrees with me. It's actually illegal in our state for schools to charge mandatory fees. Yet, it is currently pretty much universally done. Why would schools all across Tennessee be flagrantly violating state law? I suppose it's because many people are unaware of the law, and they can get away with it.

Let me prove my case that it's illegal. Here is a memorandum put out a few years ago to all local school boards: http://tennessee.gov/education/locfinstdfeeintmemo.htm. There is also a legal opinion published by the state Attorney General's office: http://www.tennessee.gov/education/locfinagstdfee.pdf. And I just completed an email discussion with the General Counsel to the State Board of Education that confirmed my understanding of these documents.

To try to collect these mandatory fees, which I'm resisting paying on principle, my children have been publically singled out as non-payers, publically verbally ridiculed, threatened with non-graduation, penalized grade points, and prevented from class participation.

I'm about to contact the principal about the issue and don't know how that will go. I'll post back again with a follow-up.

Theology

Everyone has a theology. Your theology is intertwined with your worldview. It informs your worldview and is often informed by your worldview. Even an atheist has a theology (that He doesn't exist). It can be argued that part of the atheist's theology is also what they substitute for God in their worldview. My contention is that every worldview has placeholders for God. For instance, every worldview answers the question: "How did we get here"? This is the placeholder for God (at least in some loose sense). An atheist fills this with Nature.

Is theology important? Many people would say no. And here are some reasons that come to mind:

• Certain knowledge of God is unattainable (Agnosticism)
• Language is too imprecise to derive theology from the Bible (Deconstructionism)
• God isn't interested in our minds, just our hearts (itself a statement of theology)
• Theology divides people, and this is a bad thing (again a theological statement)
• And the big one: One person's truth isn't another person's truth (postmodernism, which makes theology pointless, ultimately by assuming no God)

Yet, we can plainly see the importance of theology all around us. For, even when someone claims to have no theology, they do have a round-a-bout one. Consider those contentious issues of politics and morality. A person's theology informs every one of those contentious issues. Theology matters in the following areas:

• Politics (your view on the gulf war is derived in large part from your theology...many layers down perhaps)
• Your basic ideas of fairness and morality (how about gay marriage?)
• Right to life legislation (what is a human, and what intrinsic value do we hold?)
• How to spend tax $ (will better education solve the crime problem? drug problem?)

Whether you recognize it or not, theology is important to you (even if you're an atheist). But I'm primarily writing to the professing Christian here. Theology is important to us because we need knowledge of God and His requirements of us. One of the foundational theological ideas is that God is a moral judge. He makes moral demands of us. We must know right from wrong. We therefore must be about understanding His requirements. How about the commandment to have no other gods before Him? It can be argued that believing a falsehood about God is tantamount to believing in a different God.

A christian without theology is like a football game without a rule book. A christian with bad theology (false beliefs about God) is like a football player not following the established rules.

Where does our theology come from?

Theology is derived from revelation. General revelation is that revelation that is 'general' in 2 ways. It is generally available to all people, and it's content is general (as opposed to specific). General revelation does tell us some things about God (ie. that He exists (cosmology), that He has some purpose for us (teleology), and that He's personal, intelligent and powerful). General revelation comes from two sources. The most obvious one is the physical universe which is understood via science. The not so obvious one is the internal 'universe' of our mind and conscience. This is understood subjectively; and I suppose objectively through logic.

Special revelation is what most people think of immediately when 'revelation' is mentioned. This refers to God's revealing specific information and revealing it in a targeted manner (to His chosen people).

Theology uses these 2 forms of revelation (mostly the 'special' variety) to develop knowledge of God. This would be impossible unless you could trust that the Bible is true information about God (we do have this evidence, which I won't cover now). It also presupposes that language is a reliable conveyor of information. This idea is challenged in our culture today. You can see why deconstructionism is not compatible with the Christian worldview. If meaning couldn't be objectively communicated through words then we couldn't trust the Bible to tell us anything true about God which leaves us unable to be christians.

Another problem is the confusion between objective and subjective claims. For a truly subjective claim it's rather pointless to speak of true or false. If you say that chocolate is the best flavor there is, I wouldn't argue with you that you are wrong. It's a subjective statement. Preference is a subjective thing. However, religion is not subjective. Yes, there is a personal experiential aspect which is subjective. But there are numerous objective truth claims included. By this I mean things that are true for all people at all times regardless of their belief about them. This is the type of thing that religion is (at least most...perhaps less so for Hinduism). It's pointless to say that christianity is true for some, but false for others. It's either true for all people or false for all people.

Another problem with theology is that many people don't realize that there is an objective methodology to be used in interpreting and understanding the Bible. Hermeneutics is the name for this methodology. There are a few hermeneutical approaches out there, but there seems good reason for christians to rally around the grammatico-historical method.

When applied correctly and consistently this actually results in a high level of agreement among scholars as to a text's actual meaning. Disagreements can often be resolved via a compelling argument, nearing the level of 'proof'. It's really not true that we must be content to sit by in a climate of theological confusion, never believing things about God with certainty. If this were so, then I have a hard time explaining why God took the time to reveal the information anyway. Revelation is pointless when devoid of meaning.

World View

What is a world view? Well, simply stated, it's the overall philosophical framework through which you interpret or filter all information. It consists of beliefs layered on presuppositions.

According to Colson it's a foundational set of beliefs or understandings that answer the 'big' questions such as (note: synthesis from past memory):

• Where did we come from?
• What is wrong with the world?
• What will 'redeem' the world?
• Where are we going?

The Christian world view then is the overall philosophical framework (noetic structure) that is derived from an understanding of the revelation found in the Bible.

One necessary trait of a world view is internal consistency. This means that all of the ideas held, as well as the ideas derived from them must all fit together nicely like a jigsaw puzzle. If you are missing pieces, have too many pieces, or they just don't fit together, then you can be sure that you are either missing pieces or have too many pieces, or have incompatible pieces. Following this analogy just a bit more, if each piece of the puzzle represents a belief then if you fail the test of internal consistency then you can be sure that one or more of your ideas are false. This can be painful for some. One term used for it from the field of psychology is cognitive dissonance. If your ideas are not all consistent this is the hallmark of falsehood. It could be that your worldview is almost perfectly consistent and you find that something like the major catastrophe that just occurred in New Orleans really rocks your world. You might find that one or more of your beliefs about the nature of the world, or the nature of God can't be reconciled with the destruction and suffering.

Some people operate in a post-modern haze and suppress these feelings of cognitive dissonance. I say suppress because I believe everyone is aware of them on some level but just choose not to engage these deeper issues. They may even believe that the world around them (ala postmodernism) is not one that should be rationally examined for consistency. So they ignore the dissonance just as I ignore pain when training or competing in a sporting event. It's there and I know it but I ignore it. I could choose to believe the pain isn't real (some new age trickery) but it's still perceived, just ignored. Of course this act of ignoring can only be done when something else is taking our attention. My pain tolerance trick is to focus completely on the sensation I feel in a body part that's not hurting. If I concentrate hard enough on my pinky for instance I really can ignore, for a time, the pain somewhere else. So is it any wonder that our culture is full of substance abuse, hobbies, sex, media and entertainment...often these are psychic pain relievers.

Many people become Christians because they have examined carefully all of the various worldviews out there. I believe it's true that there is only one that corresponds correctly to the perceived world and has internal consistency. This is the Christian worldview. And many flavors of the Christian worldview either don't correspond to the real world, or they are NOT internally consistent. This leads us in to Biblical theology, and I'm not going there right now. But suffice it to say many christians end up having their faith shaken, and sometimes lost (nevermind the issue of perseverence for now) simply because their bad theology was misinterpreted as a bad religion.

Really then, when someone decides to become a christian just by reading the Bible without spending months and months pouring over the evidence is it valid? Well, I respect someone who pours over the evidence, but I won't malign the person who doesn't need to. Consider it this way: if ALL other worldviews have been considered and found to be internally inconsistent except for one then isn't it justified to adopt that one? Many great thinkers have arrived at christianity in the distant past long before we had most of the evidence we have today. Internal consistency isn't proof of truthfulness, but lack thereof is proof for falsehood. If only one option is left after examining and ruling out all others then you are justified in accepting it as truth.