A Question of Epistemology Part II

To conclude my argument about the Grand Canyon, before moving on to the bigger question, I must mention a couple of  convincing arguments about the complexity and age.

Stromatolites (see the photo on the right of the few living colonies left on earth)  are a type of limestone/shale formation that comes from a thick layer of columnar bacteria colonies that grow in shallow warm seas. It can take hundreds of  years to form a layer, not to mention the very thick layer that is found about a 1/4 way up in the Grand Canyon (see photo below).  I touched these just a few days ago.

I will add one more photo  below of a drawing of the rock formations in the canyon just as a glimpse into this complex story.

But I have only scraped the surface, no pun intended. My point is, the evidence of a very complex and very old Grand Canyon is overwhelming to any one who will take the time to look with their own eyes and listen.

So here is on to my real question.  How can men (I don't know of any women who are part of ICR), who have PhDs, who are very bright, come up with a explanation that rational child would reject? Look at the canyon with your own eyes. It is not anything like the ash "canyons" at Mount Saint Helens (I've climbed that mountain and have had my share of that slippery fine stuff).  If the Grand Canyon was made up of layers of similar shale (mud turn to stone) then you might make the crazy argument that it was formed in a matter of weeks under a catastrophic flood. But it is not.

I'm about to digress into one more argument about the particulars (in this case the age of the Grand Canyon) before I get back on track with the philosophical issue of epistemology. Sorry, but I can't help myself.

The other explanation that ICR made bout the fossil record (life forms) was that different creatures swam upward during the flood and died at different levels of mud.  Are you kidding me?  So, if the world was covered by water, who would drown first and sink, a trilobite (a very early marine anthropoid, who could swim very well thank you, as well as "breath" under water) or lizards? Why would a fern fossil be found near the top of the "mud layers" and the good swimmers at the bottom?  If the earth was flooded then covered with mud before eroding away, the ferns should be at the bottom and the trilobites at the top.

Now, finally to my main argument and concern.  God speaks truth to us through his inspired word that was written by real people living in history in this real material world. Since God is the creator of this material world and deemed it spectacular, we can also learn truth through His creation. 

There is a third "truth" that I find dubious and that is the gnostic truth that many modern evangelicals teach. This is a truth that just comes "into your heart" directly from the Holy Spirit.  While that sounds neat, it is a gross neglect of the fallen nature of our emotions. 

The emotional self is what most evangelicals re-label (under the Platonic rather than Biblical view of the psyche or soul) as our spiritual self, unfallen and pure (in their belief system).  However, I know people who are 100% certain, based on this gnostic type of truth, that the CIA has implanted probes into their brains. I have known people and known of people (per historical accounts) that were 100% sure that God had spoken to their spiritual places to convince them that he wanted them to have sex with 14 year old girls, or to blow themselves up and kill everyone in a nursery school, or ask for money on TV to buy yourself a Lear jet with leather seats and the list goes on and on.  Now, I don't mean to totally disregard human intuition. There is value there but my point is that it cannot be totally trusted.

But this gnostic approach to truth is made more palatable  in Billy Graham movies or in church testimonials when we say that "God spoke to my heart."  This is where, in the small group I attend, I got the weebie jeebies when one of the elders said that one day the  Holy Spirit might speak to him from a verse that has nothing to do with the original intentions of the verse, and later the Holy Spirit might tell him to do the opposite form the same verse.  This is when the Bible stops being the Bible of Church history and becomes an evangelical book of charms and magic.

So when we go back to the original forms of revealed truth, the scriptures and creation, there should be agreement.  I don't believe that true Christians can accept the post-modern notion of the synthesis of truth, where opposites can both be true. In traditional logic . . . they can not. So when these two forms of truth are in conflict, as in the Grand Canyon view of ICR, then the problem has to be with interpretation by the fallen person making the assumption.

In this one case, there is overwhelming support that the Grand Canyon reveals an earth that is very old and complex as observed in the material world. I see much more freedom in the creation story of scripture in how that came about. As I've asked again, please show the passage in scripture where God is emphatic that he created the universe six thousand years ago?

I know that this is getting long and I'm about to conclude this thought, but hang in there.

So why do the smart ICR scientists look at the obvious material world and come up with conclusions that a third grader would reject? It is because of the "branding" of truth.  This is a sociological and psychological phenomenon that is portrayed as an epistemological one. Just study the history of the modern evangelical movement and you will see when this sociological event takes place. As the liberal (meaning real, philosophical "liberal" not the liberal in the current use to describe a democrat) theologians in Europe during the late 1800s began to question the authenticity of the Bible, the "fundamentalist" created a fundamental set of beliefs that they would not yield on and unfortunately many of them pick a six thousand year old earth as one of those.

I saw an interview with John Stewart recently (can't remember where) and they played a clip where he was interviewing a cabinet member of the Obama administration. He chuckled and said that he hated to interview politicians because it was like talking to a robot. You can not ask them any question that doesn't come back with the branded answer that we all know. Because, if they were to step into their own human-ness and give a candid answer, they would be fired the next morning. At least, he said, when he talks to a salesman he knows what they are going to say to promote their brand, but sometimes they will become human, at least off camera, and wink and say, "yeah, actually our competitors are making a better product than us right now."  But the politician is rigid and "stays in character" 24/7 . . . to the point they start to believe their own lies. 

So in search of a true epistemology, we need to be humble, call the branding of truth for what it is, and understand the weakness of our own psychological self, without projecting that as a weakness of God or the Christian essentials.

My brief vacation is ending and I may be back in the grind of an intense work schedule and disappear again, but I hope not. Sorry again for any typos but I'm being summoned again and I don't have time to proof-read.