The theory: Natural science, in its desire to be self-contained, and to deal with observations and experimentations within the natural world, has created a box in which they can work. Within this box there can be nothing either supernatural or metaphysical, but, rather, only that which is verifiable through scientific tests.
The Reason/Faith Divide
In the modern world in which we live two friends have been divided. It is a sad thing really, for throughout their history they were always together, seen side-by-side and united in their goal. Today, however, some have come along and created an un-true division between them. Who are these friends? Faith and reason are their names.
The present day dichotomy between faith and reason suggests that faith is based on subjective and un-real elements, while reason is based on facts, and is objective. This dichotomy, however, has not existed throughout history, as was already said. Jonathan Edwards, for example, made some great contributions to the study of the spider. Edwards, a Calvinist pastor/theologian, wrote a series of essays on the natural world while doing his tutorship at Yale. Ian Murray says, “Edward’s most noteworthy work during his Yale tutorship lay in natural science…” Wallace Anderson writes, “In his early essays and throughout ‘Natural Philosophy’ he attempts to formulate and apply explanatory hypotheses to account for such phenomena as the appearance of the rainbow and other meteors, the evaporation of water, combustion, respiration, the circulation of blood, the freezing of ice, elasticity, and the reflection, refraction, and diffraction or ‘incurvation’ of light. His ‘Spider’ papers …have been widely praised, not only by students of Edwards’ thought but by professional scientists as well, for their contributions to the natural history of the spider…
[1]” Here was at least one man in Christian history who did not believe in this divide.
In a like manner, Isaac Newton before Edwards was both a devout man of faith and a brilliant mathematician. Newtonian physics took off and became so highly accepted that most forgot the faith of Newton. Despite his rather mechanistic view of the world Newton believed in the authority of the Bible, and even wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation.
Another individual from history who did not believe in this dichotomy was Saint Thomas Aquinas. While not being particularly involved in the natural sciences, Aquinas saw faith and reason as friends. R.C. Sproul writes, “To charge Thomas with separating nature from grace is to miss the primary thrust of his entire philosophy, particularly with respect to his monumental defense of the Christian faith
[2].” Thomas was among that system of thought known as scholasticism. “Scholastic philosophers relied heavily on rigorous logic, emphasizing the art of deductive reasoning
[3].”
Prior to Aquinas was the great theologian Saint Augustine of Hippo. It is with Augustine that we are most concerned when we come to this discussion of reason and faith. Today many modernists assert this divide between religion and fact. But, as Norman Geisler brilliantly points out, atheism is as much a faith as is Christianity. Augustine recognized this earlier when he wrote on the two cities. Nancy Pearcey identifies what these two cities represented: “Ever since the Fall, the human race has been divided into two distinct groups- those who follow God and submit their minds to His truth, and those who set up an idol of some kind and then organize their thinking to rationalize their worship of that idol. A false god leads to the formation of a false worldview
[4].”
God created man to have the need to worship, the need for religion; that is clear from the fact that so many are prone to worship sport’s stars, musicians, and lovers. C.S. Lewis clearly observed this when he wrote, “The world rings with praise- lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game- praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars
[5].” We are all religious in some sense; the real distinction, then, is not who’s religious and who’s logical, but whose religion is true.
If it is true that we all have these preconceived notions and spiritual motivations then it must also be concluded that there is no such thing as purely objective science. Science does not, in and of itself, provide answers to theories. Rather it provides us with data that needs to be interpreted and it is in this process of interpreting that data that our biases come into play. The interpretation of the scientist will depend largely upon the worldview in which they already think. The naturalist will immediately exclude any possibility for the existence of the supernatural. In fact many have re-defined science in order that it should fit into their worldview. The naturalist’s opinion of the study of nature is of course quite the opposite of what the Bible teaches; for God’s Word clearly says, “For [God’s] invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20)
[6]. So if this is true, and we believe that all of God’s Word is, then why do so many still reject the existence of God? Paul teaches us in Romans that it is the result of sin, “by their unrighteousness [they] suppress the truth” (v. 18). Nonetheless God has indeed made Himself knowable through His creation, but sinful man cannot accept this unless Christ awakens Him to it.
This all leaves us with a very important question: how do we approach the study of science? If science is a study of the natural world must it necessarily set itself inside a “box” that excludes the supernatural? Can it really be detached from philosophy, religion, ethics, and other disciplines? Answering these questions is the aim of the rest of this essay.
Epistemology
In creating humankind in His image, God has made a people that can know real things about our world and real things about our God. There must be such a thing as real, objective truth and this truth must be knowable. In fact it is quite apparent to any rationally thinking person that if you say, “nothing is knowable”, you have stated to know something; namely that nothing can be known. You defeat your own argument. In a like manner anyone who says that we cannot know God, because God is above logic, has indeed claimed to know one thing about God. As Dr. Carl F. Henry wrote, “Whoever calls for higher logic must preserve the existing laws of logic to escape pleading the cause of illogical nonsense
[7].”
It is important to clarify that we will never fully know God. But there is a difference between the old usage of “incomprehensible” and the more modern usage. The older usage of the word meant: we can never “fully know” God. This must be contrasted, as was shown above, with the modern definition of “incomprehensible”, which says we can “never know” God. Wayne Grudem explains why this doctrine of incomprehensibility is good for us: “It means that we will never be able to know ‘too much’ about God, for we will never run out of things to learn about Him, and we will thus never tire in delighting in the discovery of more and more of His excellence and of the greatness of His works
[8].” Knowing God is not only possible it is essential to Christianity! The Bible clearly testifies that God has made Himself knowable “in the things that have been made. So [man] is without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). This verse tells us that God is indeed knowable, but it does not tell us specifically how we can know Him. Let’s take a look, then, at the three common approaches to epistemology (or knowledge).
Atheism
There are three common epistemological approaches that we are confronted with in the world: (1) The Atheistic approach, (2) Theistic approach, (3) and the Biblical approach. Let’s take a closer look at each one of them individually, beginning with the Atheistic approach to epistemology.
In the sixteenth century new developments in philosophy opened the door to that divide between faith and reason, which we have already related. It was a new form of skepticism that said every proposition has an antithesis that is equally probable and improbable. R.C. Sproul points out that this new doubt forced philosophers to suspend judgment. It was during this period that men began to argue that we cannot know the existence of God for we cannot comprehend His being. From these roots “theology, queen of the sciences, was divorced from her handmaiden philosophy
[9].” The friendship of faith and reason was broken.
Among the many changes in the sixteenth century we find not only the Protestant Reformation, but also the Copernican Revolution, the experiments of Galileo and the journey of Magellan. Both science and theology were changing the world forever. It was in this turmoil that Rene Descartes was born, in 1596.
Descartes was heavily interested in mathematics. It was the certainty of the subject that interested him (the fact that math as a kind of symbolic logic is transcendent); he was starving for certainty. Throughout his philosophical work he refused to accept anything as true that was not known to be true without doubt. For this method to work it would involve a “relentless pursuit of fundamental truth that is so certain that everything else can be tested against it
[10].” Thus he begins on a pursuit of hard skepticism. He began to doubt all things until a light broke forth and he found his primary truth: “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). For Descartes all that doubting finally brought him to a point of certainty. Sproul spells it out for us:
Whatever else Descartes does not know, he knows for sure that he is a thinker or a being that thinks. To doubt the truth that I am thinking, I must think, I cannot doubt that I am thinking without affirming that I am thinking. To be thinking I must exist, because thought requires a thinker
[11].
This belief in doubt led to another discovery for the philosopher. In order to know that he doubted, Rene had to recognize that he lacked certainty, which, in turn, required a discernment of the “imperfect” from the “perfect”. This idea of the “perfect” had to have a cause. For “perfection” to have a cause there must be a perfect being and thus Descartes was brought to the existence of God. This argument, however, left many still clamoring for further “proof”, and by the time of the Enlightenment many were again turning to a philosophy of agnosticism that says we cannot know God.
The Effects of the Enlightenment
Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man says most aptly what most scholars thought during the 18th Century: “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man
[12].” The Enlightenment thought displaced God, as the center of life, with man. Pope was, himself, a devout Catholic, yet he was in line with much of this new ideology and can very well be used here as a spokesman of its philosophy.
The advances in science occurring between the time of Descartes and Pope raised many questions. Specifically, these advances raised questions about God’s role in the world. Many discoveries were showing the world as operating like a big machine, a sort of cosmic clock. This left many in the faith wondering how God’s providence fit in. What was formerly identified as operating by the laws of God was now being labeled as operating by the laws of nature. For centuries the church had understood the earth, and all on it and in it, to be completely dependent upon God for both its existence and its continuance.
It is in this stage in history that Atheism begins to boldly develop. The 18th century challenged much in Christianity and Theism in general. Descartes’ failure to prove the existence of God opened up the suspicion that perhaps it was improvable. The Enlightenment in particular was very hostile to theism, and argued against even attempting to prove the existence of God.
As a movement the Enlightenment gave us the analytical method, which is the heart of the scientific method. “The analytical method…combines the elements of induction and deduction, seeking the ‘logic of the facts.’ One gathers the facts inductively and empirically, then searches for the pattern of universal laws operating within the facts
[13].”
Immanuel Kant lived during these days and though a professed believer in God he furthered this cause of separating God from the natural world. For Kant, like all the enlightened thinkers, science cannot account for God. It is to this man that we owe much of our thinking today.
Many believe that Kant successfully refuted all the “proofs” for the existence of God presented by Thomas Aquinas. Kant argues that all knowledge is restricted to this natural world and we cannot know anything other than it. Aquinas, on the other hand, argued that we may know God through the medium of the natural world. This belief, we will remember, is supported by Romans 1:20, which was referenced above. Thus either Kant is right and the Bible is wrong, or vice versa.
Kantian philosophy was revolutionary! God was pushed out the front door, and this all done by a professed believer. Almost all schools of philosophy after him have, in one sense or another, relied upon Kant. In fact it is from Kant, chiefly, that the modern American society derives its concept of the faith/fact divide (or as many qualify it: personal values vs. verifiable fact).
In conclusion let me summarize the three main effects of the Enlightenment: (1) It divided faith from reason. (2) It confined science and reason to the realm of the natural world. (3) It paved the way for Atheism, as we know it today.
Four Chief Figures in the Development of Modern Atheism
There are a multitude of men whom we could turn to as key figures in the development of modern atheism; I want to look at only four. These four men whom I’ve selected to glance at here are undeniably among some of the most influential men in the history of the western world.
First on anyone’s list of import figures in composing an atheistic epistemology is Charles Darwin. It was 1831 when Darwin set sail on a long voyage in the ship known as the Beagle. His goal was to study life and species of animals in particular. In 1859 he rushed the first edition of his greatest work The Origin of Species into publication, in hopes of beating a competing scientist who was just about to propose a similar theory. Darwin’s book is the single most important work for the Atheist. While its theories have been tampered with and many of the neo-Darwinists have altered it somewhat, the work still stands as the doorway to atheistic thought. The work has three big propositions: (1) “Species are not immutable”, (2) “the evolutionary process can account for all or nearly all diversity of life”, (3) “this process was guided by natural selection or ‘survival of the fittest’
[14].”
The second major figure in the development of atheism was Karl Marx. Marx built an entire social philosophy upon Darwin’s scientific theories. He took the Darwinian theory a step further when he decided that there was sufficient scientific evidence to suppose that God does not exist. He was not only an atheist, however, but a vehement atheist.
When you consider Karl Marx you must be sure to recognize the power and influence of Communism. In composing his theories on sociology and economics Marx would have influence all around the world, not least of all Russia. But the doctrines of communism are rooted in atheism. The very notion that “religion is merely an anti-depressant for the oppressed working class
[15]” or an “opium of the people” was based upon atheistic convictions long before it came to be seen as a sociological dogma. The abolition of religion was a primary philosophy of Karl Marx and so it carried over, necessarily, into Communism. By, supposedly, fighting for the proletariat, Communism was purporting atheism.
Our third historical personage to sketch here is none other than Friedrich Nietzsche. Every atheist, in probably a dozen or so languages, can quote Nietzsche’s most famous line, “God is dead.” His importance in the development of atheism, however, goes deeper than a mere slogan. The theory of evolution was so important to Nietzsche that many have hailed him as the “philosopher of evolution.” Sproul elaborates on the relationship between Darwinism and this philosopher:
Nietzsche extended the evolutionary hypothesis beyond the physical development of animals, making religion, philosophy, and logic the products of evolution. Yet he challenged the idea that mankind is locked into an upward spiral of progress. Like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche rejected the Hegelian ideal and saw the culture of the nineteenth-century Europe not as advancing but as declining
[16].
This decline, according to Nietzsche, is the direct result of Christianity’s negative influence. One of the common assertions today, that Nietzsche represented in his own time, is that Christianity’s absolute moral rules dehumanize the masses. Religion destroys the natural drive within man. This is an argument, more or less for hedonism
[17].
The final influential figure in the development of modern atheism that we will look at is Sigmund Freud. He is best known for his anthropological and psychological contributions, but these contributions have deep roots in atheism. By the 19th century atheism was thriving, but it was focusing its efforts more consistently on answering one question: “If God does not exist, why does religion?” It was a question of origins: where did religion come from?
Many atheist posited answers to this question. Marx, we will recall, suggested that it was developed to control the proletariat. Nietzsche and Freud suggested that it was a means to explain the unexplainable. Man wants to be in control and his inability to control nature (such things as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc.) compelled him to create God, a being who could control these things. It was a means of generating comfort for humanity.
Religion, says Freud, has a threefold task: (1) to exorcise the terrors of nature; (2) to reconcile us to the cruelty of fate; and (3) to compensate us for the sufferings and privations civilization has imposed
[18]. Freud’s theories would become commonly accepted, without refutation, until the mid to late 90s.
These four figures give the atheist a “scientific” foundation, a social foundation, a philosophical foundation, and an anthropological foundation.
Atheistic Epistemology
Now that we’ve reviewed somewhat of the history of atheism and some of its key spokesman we are able to assess what the atheistic approach to epistemology is. Thanks to the work of Descartes and the Enlightenment many have come to refer to reason with a capital “R”. Reason is God. From the outset of his approach the atheist discounts any possibility for the supernatural. In this view of epistemology man is completely independent of God, and is in total control of gaining any knowledge. As Graeme Goldsworthy has stated, “God does not exist or, if He does, He is irrelevant
[19].” In this approach we gain knowledge simply through our reason, observations, and experiences.
There is a flaw in this approach, however (well actually I think there are many flaws in this approach but let me start by listing one). The presupposition that man can gain knowledge based simply on observation, reason, and experience alone has a hole in it; for our observations and experiences can deceive us. Saint Augustine knew this when he spoke of the boat oar in the water. In water an oar appears, to the human eye, to be bent; but in reality the oar is as straight as it was when it went into the water. This great teacher and church father new that there were limitations to our sensory knowledge.
Furthermore we must examine the very definition of “science” that the atheist appeals to. The commonly accepted definition of “science” is one that excludes any possibility for the supernatural. A version of this definition might look like this:
(1) It is guided by natural law
(2) It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law
(3) It is testable against the empirical world
(4) Its conclusions are tentative- that is, not necessarily the final word
(5) And it is falsifiable.
[20]This is commonly referred to as logical positivism. Only that which is verifiable or able to be proven by test can be classified as factual. What’s the problem with this definition? The definition does not meet its own standard. If something is factual only if it is explained by referencing natural law than we must conclude that this definition can be explained by referencing natural law. But can it? No. It dissolves itself. Is this definition testable against the empirical world? No. Thus we must conclude that the very definition offered by the atheist is insufficient and faulty.
But by defining science and fact as they have done the atheist has completely removed the possibility for religion to infiltrate their world. Religion cannot possibly be related to science, affect science, or be found to be true through science. Why? Because religion is not fact. It’s a rather circular argument, and it coincides with the faith/fact divide, which began this discussion. Faith and reason are separate from one another, and, according to the atheist, faith is meaningless.
The entire approach to epistemology for the atheist is based on evolution. There are some professing Christians who accept evolution, but it is basis for all atheistic beliefs. The world is a machine, life is a machine, and man too is a machine. This mechanistic view of the world, or scientific materialism, is purported today to be unquestionably true. This theory, however, has some major holes in it.
For starters we must wonder what a mechanistic view of the world means for such things as freedom, dignity, meaning, and morality. Nancy Pearcey has observed, “Naturalism leads to a mechanistic, deterministic model of human nature that reduces ideas like freedom and dignity to useful fictions
[21].”
This brings us to the very issue of science’s self containment. Is science separate from the realms of philosophy, ethics, and even religion? The answer is a strong no! Despite what the atheist professes, that man is a mere machine; he acts and lives as though he has freedom of choice, rights, and even responsibilities. Despite what the atheist professes he is not void of philosophy. His very definition of science and fact is an appeal to philosophy, and all his logic is based on un-proven presuppositions. Despite what the atheist professes he does indeed have a religion. Norman Geisler and Frank Turek have argued this beautifully in their work I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.
So Geisler writes, “Data are always interpreted by scientists. When those scientists let their personal preferences or unproven philosophical assumptions dictate their interpretation of the evidence, they do exactly what they accuse religious people of doing- they let their ideology dictate their conclusions
[22].” There are indeed unproven philosophical assumptions involved in all interpretations and thus the atheist has a faith too. In other words, neither the scientist nor the science is free from religion or philosophy. There is, in the scientific community, a strong opposition to anything outside of naturalism. In fact the opposition is so strong that evolution spokesman Richard Dawkins writes, “Even if there were no actual-evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory…we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories
[23].” Even if there’s no evidence? Does that sound like objective science or biased interpretation?
Theistic Humanism
Theism as we understand it is the acceptance of a god. It is belief in some greater being(s), divine being. Deism, like theism, believes in a supreme power outside of us but allows that this being is detached from the world’s affairs. When we speak of a theistic approach to epistemology we will have to deal with both of these streams of thought.
There are many intellectual deists from our history: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and even Abraham Lincoln. These were individuals who allowed for a mechanistic view of the world and a creator God. The foundational belief for deism is that God created the world, wound it up like a clock, and is letting it run on its own, without interference. Though many may have prayed to this God in times of desperation, or attended church (as was the case with Jefferson) most believe that God is irrelevant to the everyday affairs of our lives.
Theists, on the other hand, do not agree with this conclusion. Both Jews and Christians, for example, are theists; that is they believe in the existence of God. For the theist, however, God is personal, relational, and involved in the affairs of man. Thus He is worshiped, consulted, and needed in everyday life. The key difference between a theistic approach and a Biblical approach to epistemology, however, is most visible in the role that reason plays in each approach.
A theistic humanistic approach acknowledges that there are some things that man cannot understand unless it is by divine revelation (i.e. the Bible and the Holy Spirit); these things are, however, confined to the religious realm. There are some things that reason cannot explain, some things that are beyond our human abilities to grasp. Thus man is only partially independent of God, and partially dependent upon God. Man can, however, gain knowledge simply by his reasoning powers and personal intellectual endeavors. All knowledge received by special revelation from God is added to what man has gained on his own. In this approach it is reason, not God, who is the final judge of what is true or not true. As with the atheistic approach, all that we learn is by experience, observation, and reason- anything contrary to these facts must be false.
The bible too is subject to human judgment. If the Bible says that God created the world in six days and science teaches that the world evolved over millions over years then they are determined that “science” has proven something other than what the text actually says. In this particular area those approaching epistemology from a theistic perspective have developed a synthesis of the Biblical account of creation and the evolutionary science, it is known as theistic evolution
[24].
The fatal flaw in this particular system is that it has adhered to the false dichotomy between faith and fact. The theist has bought into the lie that religion has no bearing on science. One can believe in God, have some sort of spirituality, and yet still adhere to the atheistic worldview. In short they are practical atheists. They may confess some faith, but in their jobs, in science, and in the approach to gaining knowledge God is irrelevant. Many professing believers have accepted this divide, but their justifications for it are absurd. One may note the absurdity of the following justification by Siger de Brabant, a French theologian:
“There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world, which contradicts the supernatural world. While we are being naturalists, we can suppose that Christianity is all nonsense; but then, when we remember that we are Christians, we must admit that Christianity is true even if it is nonsense
[25].”
It really does sound absurd spelled out and taken to its fullest implications. Many would object to this justification, but in their lives they act as though it is true. The theistic approach, despite its protestations, still makes a god out of human Reason. Those supporting it live as practical atheists, and thus we may return to the same arguments listed above for the atheistic approach to epistemology. God may be out there, but He can only add to the knowledge that we gain on our own, He cannot change or challenge what we “know to be true”.
Biblical Christianity
This brings us, finally, to the last approach to epistemology, Biblical Christianity. All approaches to epistemology fall into one of these three categories. There are numerous variations but they can all be broken down and classified in one of these three systems of thought. The biblical approach is altogether different from both of the aforementioned methods, and it is, as I intend to argue, the right one.
“The Christian worldview alone,” writes Pearcey, “offers a whole and integral truth. It is true not about only a limited aspect of reality but about total reality. It is total truth
[26].” The atheist cannot account for morality, for the design in creation, for the desire for purpose and meaning in human beings, nor can it stand up to tough criticism. The theistic approach to knowledge resorts to absurdity in hopes to keep both faith and fact separate from one another. But Christianity realizes that the secular/sacred split is imposed upon us, and it is not a reality.
In Psalm 19:1 David writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” From this verse the Christian understand that God is visible through the created world that He has made. Blaise Pascal understood this to be fact and he spoke of it in a very concrete analogy.
Suppose that you are walking along the beach and you find a watch in the sand. As you observe the watch, study it, examine its cogs and mechanics inside you know that this watch must have a watchmaker. And so, he concludes, when we examine the world we see clearly that it too must have a creator. Now we have already spoken of the limitations to our observations. Remember Augustine’s example of the oar in the water. But we are not to exclude the use of reason altogether because of this limitation. Many wonderful discoveries have come about because of human reasoning, observation, and experimentation. These discoveries, however, are not the achievements of humanity alone. This is the biblical view of epistemology: all knowledge comes from God. Paul rightly asks the Corinthians, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
[27]” All things are from God.
Again Paul writes, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Human reason alone cannot know God, nor can it know about the things of God (which includes His created world). This does not deny that God has “made Himself known” in creation (Romans 1:20), and that He has done so in such a way that leaves man with no excuse for his ignorance of God. But how, then, are we to know anything about God or other matters? Answer: God must reveal it to us. Now if God foreordains to give us knowledge, He has also foreordained the means by which we receive that knowledge. Through reasoning, induction, deduction, experimentation, research, examination, and so forth. When aided by God, human’s can use their reasoning faculties to know the truth, when left to themselves man “suppresses the truth”, and creates lies and falsehoods.
Conclusions
I have not attempted here to deal with the subject of evolution, that was not my goal. By dealing first with the issue of epistemology I have hoped to demonstrate that all approaches that are based on pure human reasoning will fall short of truth. So the idea that the natural scientist must step inside an imaginary box, and leave his faith at the door, in order to examine the world is completely false. For if God did create the world, as the Bible teaches, marks of His presence will be visible in the things He has made. It is only in light of this that we may begin to deal with evolution.
[1] Ian Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987). 64-5.
[2] R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000). 67.
[3] Ibid. 66.
[4] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004). 42.
[5] C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalm. (Orlando: Harcourt, 1958). 94.
[6] All Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV).
[7] Carl F. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority. (Waco: Word, 1979). 3:223.
[8] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994). 150.
[9] Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas. 80.
[10] Ibid. 85.
[11] Ibid. 87.
[12] Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems. Martin Price ed., (New York: Signet Classic, 1970). 96.
[13] Sproul, 118.
[14] Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial. (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1993). 15-6. We will examine these premises more closely and critique them in another section.
[15] David A. Nobel, Understanding the Times. (Eugene: Harvest House, 1991). 71.
[16] Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas. 160-61.
[17] It should be clarified that this word is used here to signify those who lives of sinful self-indulgence, it is not meant to reflect John Piper’s more recent usage of the word.
[18] Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas. 195.
[19] Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan. (Downers Grove: IVP, 1991). 37.
[20] Phillip Johnson, Darwin on Trial. (Downers Grove: IVP, 1993). 114.
[21] Pearcey, Total Truth. 110.
[22] Norman Geisler & Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004). 128.
[23] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker. (New York: Norton, 1986). 287.
[24] There are few possible critiques to this theory; most notably is the critique that evolution puts death before sin, which completely contradicts the Biblical account that God gave death as punishment for Adam and Eve’s sin. For more on this subject see David Dunham, Answering the Skeptics: The Origin of Life. (Athens: Sovereign God, 2004).
[25] G.K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1956). 92.
[26] Peacrey, Total Truth. 121.
[27] 1 Corinthians 4:7
