From: kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie)
Subject: Re: Fingerprint of God
Summary: `Fingerprints' are clues -- and that's all we have.
Keywords: clues, prints, evidence, doctrine, `Woof!'
Organization: Rowan College of New Jersey
Disclaimer: Brandy the WonderDog has pawprints.
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 05:49:52 GMT


John Muehlhausen has been writing about Hugh Ross's _Fingerprint of God_.
In short, this is a book in which Mr Ross reconciles Bible passages with
current scientific theories.

Bryan Carpenter said that lots of things can be reconciled if you try hard
enough, and Mr Muehlhausen replied:
> I just thought it was kindof strange how all of Christian thought, which is
> about 2000 years old, coincides perfectly with what we know through science
> only recently.

This is not strange at all; the Bible makes few statements about scientific
fields except indirectly.  The only way to calculate the age of the earth, eg,
is with clues you find in the text.  Jesus never says "Today is the 4034th
anniversary of the creation of the world."

In most scientific fields, the Bible is hopelessly vague; so vague that it is
not really useful as any kind of science reference.

For example, Mr Carpenter mentioned claims that the earth was flat, and
Mr Muehlhausen replied:
> But you see, the Bible does not say the earth is flat.  Religious leaders
> wanted to believe that, so they asserted it without any evidence from the
> Bible.  OK they had evidence, but not nearly of the quality that I feel
> Dr. Ross has produced.

One passage used in these arguments is Isaiah 40:22 -- "It is he that
sitteth upon the circle of the earth."  At one time, this verse was used to
argue that the earth was flat, but now it is sometimes used to argue that
the Bible writers knew the earth was a sphere.

The problem here is that the Bible is written in natural languages; the kind
of language that real people used on a day-to-day basis.  Not logically
rigorous language, not scientifically technical language, but everyday speech.
Everyday speech includes colloqualisms whose literal meanings are gobbledygook
but whose import are obvious to fluent speakers.  Everyday speech is also far
too vague for scientific purposes.  (Even in 20th-Century English, which is
about as object-oriented a natural language as you'll find, is not precise
enough for scientific purposes, and the languages of the Bible are far less
concrete.)


Holding the Bible to scientific standards, as some error-hounds do, is
ridiculous.  How many of these error-hounds use the word `sunrise'?  Does
that prove that they're scientifically illiterate?  After all, the sun does
not rise, the earth turns.

In this case, sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander: when Christian
apologists try to squeeze scientific precision out of the colloquialisms and
vaguaries in the Bible, they're also being ridiculous.  Everyday speech does
not work that way.  True, you can put scientific precision on top of vague
words, and claim to have a match -- but so what?  Unless you can come up with
a single and unarguable way to make a precise interpretation, all you've done
is force someone else's writing into your preconcieved ideas.


I think Hugh Ross is wasting everybody's time and needlessly killing trees.
Not because what he says is wrong, but because it is useless.  What he has
done is demonstrate that one can come up with scientifically precise
interpretations of everyday writing.  I already knew that was possible.  What
he hasn't done is show that his interpretation is REQUIRED by the text -- and
without that part, his apologetics are worth no more than the error-hounds who
intepret the Bible so that it comes out wrong.

Unless the TEXT ITSELF tells you how to distinguish between precise ways to
interpret it, then any interpretation which can fit -- and there are a lot
of such interpretations of the Bible -- is equally valid.


Darren F Provine / kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu
"If any substantial number of t.r.m readers read some Wittgenstein, 60% of the
 postings would disappear.  (If they *understood* some Wittgenstein, 98% would
 disappear. :-))" -- Michael L Siemon
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc