October 15, 2015

From Gary... Pictures, memories and possibilities




This is Thompson's mill in Valley Falls, N.Y. I worked there briefly in 1968 and later lived just across the river for years. Many of my neighbors worked at that mill, and after it burned, they permanently lost their jobs. I felt sad at these things, for I made many friends in Valley Falls, but what is gone- is gone. If I could feel sad over a place that I only worked in for a short time, imagine how those who remained in Jerusalem after its destruction must have felt...

Lamentations, Chapter 1 (WEB)

1 How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! 
She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces has become tributary!
  2 She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks;
among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies.
  3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude;
she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest:
all her persecutors overtook her within the straits.
  4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because no one come to the solemn assembly;
all her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh:
her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
  5 Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper;
for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.
  6 From the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed:
her princes are become like deer that find no pasture,
they are gone without strength before the pursuer.


Judah sinned and Jerusalem's destruction was appropriate punishment. As I think on these things, I can't help but wonder what will go through the minds of those of us who are left after the fall of the U.S.A.?  It seems clear to me that this will happen, because our society is becoming as bad as Judah ever was. Perhaps the survivors will return to God with a zeal that will amaze the world. Perhaps Jesus will come first? No one knows what the future may bring. This much is certain: 1. The mill is gone 2. To me it is just a memory 3. America is descending into an abyss of moral depravity 4. There are many nations in the world that want to destroy us. 5. History repeats itself

Jesus said:

Luke, Chapter 16 (WEB):

 19  “Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.  20  A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was laid at his gate, full of sores,   21  and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores.   22  The beggar died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried.   23  In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom.   24  He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’ 

  25  “But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish.   26  Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that no one may cross over from there to us.’ 

  27  “He said, ‘I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house;   28  for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.’ 

  29  “But Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ 

  30  “He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 

  31  “He said to him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.’”


In addition to Moses and the prophets, we have the warnings of Jesus to persuade us to change our ways. Daily, I try to listen to what God wants me to do- I hope you will do the same. Who knows, if enough of us do this, maybe, just maybe, America will be saved punishment. 

One last thought...

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

From Gary... Bible Reading October 15



Bible Reading  

October 15

The World English Bible


Oct. 15
Proverbs 18-20
Pro 18:1 An unfriendly man pursues selfishness, and defies all sound judgment.
Pro 18:2 A fool has no delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own opinion.
Pro 18:3 When wickedness comes, contempt also comes, and with shame comes disgrace.
Pro 18:4 The words of a man's mouth are like deep waters. The fountain of wisdom is like a flowing brook.
Pro 18:5 To be partial to the faces of the wicked is not good, nor to deprive the innocent of justice.
Pro 18:6 A fool's lips come into strife, and his mouth invites beatings.
Pro 18:7 A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are a snare to his soul.
Pro 18:8 The words of a gossip are like dainty morsels: they go down into a person's innermost parts.
Pro 18:9 One who is slack in his work is brother to him who is a master of destruction.
Pro 18:10 The name of Yahweh is a strong tower: the righteous run to him, and are safe.
Pro 18:11 The rich man's wealth is his strong city, like an unscalable wall in his own imagination.
Pro 18:12 Before destruction the heart of man is proud, but before honor is humility.
Pro 18:13 He who gives answer before he hears, that is folly and shame to him.
Pro 18:14 A man's spirit will sustain him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear?
Pro 18:15 The heart of the discerning gets knowledge. The ear of the wise seeks knowledge.
Pro 18:16 A man's gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men.
Pro 18:17 He who pleads his cause first seems right; until another comes and questions him.
Pro 18:18 The lot settles disputes, and keeps strong ones apart.
Pro 18:19 A brother offended is more difficult than a fortified city; and disputes are like the bars of a castle.
Pro 18:20 A man's stomach is filled with the fruit of his mouth. With the harvest of his lips he is satisfied.
Pro 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue; those who love it will eat its fruit.
Pro 18:22 Whoever finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor of Yahweh.
Pro 18:23 The poor plead for mercy, but the rich answer harshly.
Pro 18:24 A man of many companions may be ruined, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Pro 19:1 Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than he who is perverse in his lips and is a fool.
Pro 19:2 It isn't good to have zeal without knowledge; nor being hasty with one's feet and missing the way.
Pro 19:3 The foolishness of man subverts his way; his heart rages against Yahweh.
Pro 19:4 Wealth adds many friends, but the poor is separated from his friend.
Pro 19:5 A false witness shall not be unpunished. He who pours out lies shall not go free.
Pro 19:6 Many will entreat the favor of a ruler, and everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts.
Pro 19:7 All the relatives of the poor shun him: how much more do his friends avoid him! He pursues them with pleas, but they are gone.
Pro 19:8 He who gets wisdom loves his own soul. He who keeps understanding shall find good.
Pro 19:9 A false witness shall not be unpunished. He who utters lies shall perish.
Pro 19:10 Delicate living is not appropriate for a fool, much less for a servant to have rule over princes.
Pro 19:11 The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger. It is his glory to overlook an offense.
Pro 19:12 The king's wrath is like the roaring of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass.
Pro 19:13 A foolish son is the calamity of his father. A wife's quarrels are a continual dripping.
Pro 19:14 House and riches are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from Yahweh.
Pro 19:15 Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep. The idle soul shall suffer hunger.
Pro 19:16 He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, but he who is contemptuous in his ways shall die.
Pro 19:17 He who has pity on the poor lends to Yahweh; he will reward him.
Pro 19:18 Discipline your son, for there is hope; don't be a willing party to his death.
Pro 19:19 A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty, for if you rescue him, you must do it again.
Pro 19:20 Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter end.
Pro 19:21 There are many plans in a man's heart, but Yahweh's counsel will prevail.
Pro 19:22 That which makes a man to be desired is his kindness. A poor man is better than a liar.
Pro 19:23 The fear of Yahweh leads to life, then contentment; he rests and will not be touched by trouble.
Pro 19:24 The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not so much as bring it to his mouth again.
Pro 19:25 Flog a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; rebuke one who has understanding, and he will gain knowledge.
Pro 19:26 He who robs his father and drives away his mother, is a son who causes shame and brings reproach.
Pro 19:27 If you stop listening to instruction, my son, you will stray from the words of knowledge.
Pro 19:28 A corrupt witness mocks justice, and the mouth of the wicked gulps down iniquity.
Pro 19:29 Penalties are prepared for scoffers, and beatings for the backs of fools.
Pro 20:1 Wine is a mocker, and beer is a brawler. Whoever is led astray by them is not wise.
Pro 20:2 The terror of a king is like the roaring of a lion. He who provokes him to anger forfeits his own life.
Pro 20:3 It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife; but every fool will be quarreling.
Pro 20:4 The sluggard will not plow by reason of the winter; therefore he shall beg in harvest, and have nothing.
Pro 20:5 Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out.
Pro 20:6 Many men claim to be men of unfailing love, but who can find a faithful man?
Pro 20:7 A righteous man walks in integrity. Blessed are his children after him.
Pro 20:8 A king who sits on the throne of judgment scatters away all evil with his eyes.
Pro 20:9 Who can say, "I have made my heart pure. I am clean and without sin?"
Pro 20:10 Differing weights and differing measures, both of them alike are an abomination to Yahweh.
Pro 20:11 Even a child makes himself known by his doings, whether his work is pure, and whether it is right.
Pro 20:12 The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, Yahweh has made even both of them.
Pro 20:13 Don't love sleep, lest you come to poverty. Open your eyes, and you shall be satisfied with bread.
Pro 20:14 "It's no good, it's no good," says the buyer; but when he is gone his way, then he boasts.
Pro 20:15 There is gold and abundance of rubies; but the lips of knowledge are a rare jewel.
Pro 20:16 Take the garment of one who puts up collateral for a stranger; and hold him in pledge for a wayward woman.
Pro 20:17 Fraudulent food is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth is filled with gravel.
Pro 20:18 Plans are established by advice; by wise guidance you wage war!
Pro 20:19 He who goes about as a tale-bearer reveals secrets; therefore don't keep company with him who opens wide his lips.
Pro 20:20 Whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in blackness of darkness.
Pro 20:21 An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning, won't be blessed in the end.
Pro 20:22 Don't say, "I will pay back evil." Wait for Yahweh, and he will save you.
Pro 20:23 Yahweh detests differing weights, and dishonest scales are not pleasing.
Pro 20:24 A man's steps are from Yahweh; how then can man understand his way?
Pro 20:25 It is a snare to a man to make a rash dedication, then later to consider his vows.
Pro 20:26 A wise king winnows out the wicked, and drives the threshing wheel over them.
Pro 20:27 The spirit of man is Yahweh's lamp, searching all his innermost parts.
Pro 20:28 Love and faithfulness keep the king safe. His throne is sustained by love.
Pro 20:29 The glory of young men is their strength. The splendor of old men is their gray hair.

Pro 20:30 Wounding blows cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the innermost parts.

Oct. 15
Ephesians 6

Eph 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Eph 6:2 "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with a promise:
Eph 6:3 "that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth."
Eph 6:4 You fathers, don't provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Eph 6:5 Servants, be obedient to those who according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as to Christ;
Eph 6:6 not in the way of service only when eyes are on you, as men pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
Eph 6:7 with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men;
Eph 6:8 knowing that whatever good thing each one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is bound or free.
Eph 6:9 You masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him.
Eph 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might.
Eph 6:11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Eph 6:12 For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world's rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Eph 6:13 Therefore, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
Eph 6:14 Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
Eph 6:15 and having fitted your feet with the preparation of the Good News of peace;
Eph 6:16 above all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.
Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the spoken word of God;
Eph 6:18 with all prayer and requests, praying at all times in the Spirit, and being watchful to this end in all perseverance and requests for all the saints:
Eph 6:19 on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the Good News,
Eph 6:20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
Eph 6:21 But that you also may know my affairs, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make known to you all things;
Eph 6:22 whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our state, and that he may comfort your hearts.
Eph 6:23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Eph 6:24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. Amen. 

Are There Degrees of Punishment and Reward? by Kyle Butt, M.A. Alden Bass, Bert Thompson, Ph.D.


http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=512

Are There Degrees of Punishment and Reward?

by Kyle Butt, M.A.
Alden Bass
Bert Thompson, Ph.D.
Q.
Will there be degrees of reward in heaven? Similarly, will there be degrees of punishment in hell?

A.

Any topic relating to the specific nature of man’s ultimate, eternal abode should be of great interest to all accountable people, since every human eventually will inhabit eternity (see Thompson, 2000a, pp. 33-39; 2000b, pp. 41-47; 2000c, pp. 49-55). It is not surprising, then, that questions of what conditions will be like in the afterlife often occupy our thoughts. Whenever questions of spiritual import are under consideration—as they are when discussing the destiny of the soul—the only reliable source of information must by necessity be the One Who is the Originator and Sustainer of the soul. God, as Creator of all things physical and spiritual (Genesis 1:1ff.; Exodus 20:11), and Himself a Spirit Being (John 4:24), is the ultimate wellspring of the soul (Ecclesiastes 12:7). The Bible, then, as God’s inspired Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21), must be the preeminent authority on this subject. It therefore is to Holy Writ that we must turn to answer any question about eternity.

DEGREES OF ETERNAL REWARD

First, it is important to note that every faithful follower of God eventually will receive an eternal reward. Writing in the book of Revelation, the apostle John described in striking language the destiny of the righteous when this world finally comes to an end: “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them.... He that overcometh shall inherit these things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son” (21:3,7, RSV). Earlier, John had encouraged his readers with these words: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). John’s coworker, the apostle Paul, referred to those who had served Jesus faithfully as “heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7). The writer of the book of Hebrews spoke of Christ as having become “unto all them that obey him, the author of eternal salvation” (5:9).
Second, it is equally important to realize that every saint will be rewarded “according to his deeds.” Matthew wrote: “For the son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds” (16:27). Paul used practically identical words in Romans 2:5-7: “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his works.” Such a concept was taught even in Old Testament times. Solomon wrote: “If thou sayest, ‘We knew not this,’ doth not he that weigheth the heart consider it? And he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it? And shall not he render to every man according to his work?” (Proverbs 24:12).
Parables from the mouth of the Lord similarly demonstrate that every person will be judged according to his or her deeds. The parable of the pounds, recorded in Luke 19:11-27, is a perfect example.
A certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called ten servants of his, and gave them each ten pounds, and said unto them, “Trade ye herewith till I come.” But his citizens hated him, and sent an ambassage after him, saying, “We will not that this man reign over us.” And it came to pass, when he was come back again, having received the kingdom, that he commanded these servants, unto whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by trading. And the first came before him, saying, “Lord, thy pound hath made ten pounds more.” And he said unto him, “Well done, thou good servant: because thou wast found faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.” And the second came, saying, “Thy pound, Lord, hath made five pounds.” And he said unto him also, “Be thou also over five cities.” And another came, saying, “Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I kept laid up in a napkin: for I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that which thou layedst not down, and reapest that which thou didst not sow.” He saith unto him, “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I am an austere man, taking up that which I laid not down, and reaping that which I did not sow; then wherefore gavest thou not my money into the bank, and I at my coming should have required it with interest?” And he said unto them that stood by, “Take from him the pound, and give it unto him that hath the ten pounds.” And they said unto him, “Lord, he hath ten pounds.” I say unto you, that unto every one that hath shall be given; but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him.
After reading this parable (and the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30), it is clear that certain individuals receive—and thus are responsible for—more pounds/talents than some others. The faithful servant who soundly invested ten pounds was awarded authority over ten cities. The second servant also was recompensed in proportion to the degree with which he fulfilled his responsibility to the master. He wisely invested five pounds, and in return was given authority over five cities. There is no reason to disbelieve, then, that had the third servant been equally faithful, he, too, would have been rewarded commensurate with his investment (which likely would have been authority over one city). This parable, then, teaches the following: (1) all of God’s servants are blessed with varied abilities; (2) all who are faithful stewards of the ability with which they have been endowed will obtain a reward; and (3) God’s stewards will be rewarded based on what they accomplished with the abilities that were entrusted to them. [This is not to say, of course, that heaven is “earned” by any human works (see Thompson, 1999, pp. 47-49). Ephesians 2:8-9 states unequivocally that salvation is a free gift of God, not something bestowed because of any human merit. Rather, the works done in the here and now provide for the Christian an eternal weight of glory—a weight that differs from person to person (2 Corinthians 4:17).]
If believers are to be judged according to their works (Matthew 16:27; 25:31-46; Revelation 20:12), it logically follows that those with the greatest responsibility can expect the strictest judgment. Indeed, the Are There Degrees of Punishment and Reward?  by Kyle Butt, M.A. Alden Bass, Bert Thompson, Ph.D.Good Book teaches exactly such a principle. Jehovah charged the prophet Ezekiel:
Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, “Thou shalt surely die,” and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thy hand. Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and thou hast delivered thy soul (Ezekiel 3:17-21).
What an awesome and terrifying responsibility that ancient preacher and prophet was given. Millennia later, James offered this warning: “Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment” (James 3:1).
Those who suggest that God will reward every saint equally often appeal to the parable that Christ presented in Matthew 20:1-15 for support of their position. There, the Lord told of a certain landowner who was in need of workers to assist him in his vineyard. The man went to the marketplace to find laborers and, when he had located some men, agreed to pay them a denarius each. About the third hour, he went to the market again in order to seek additional laborers. He went out twice more and then, at the eleventh hour, he found still more men to help. This last group worked only one hour, and yet when the end of the day arrived and all the men lined up to be paid, those “eleventh-hour” workers received their wages first—a full denarius. The rest of the men were given equal dues. When the master finally got to the laborers he had hired first thing that morning, he gave them the same amount he had given everyone else. Those “first-hour” workers were outraged! The very idea that they—who had been hired first and worked longest—should receive the same recompense as those who worked only one hour, was more than they could handle. The text in Matthew says that “they murmured against the householder” (vs. 11). But the man who had hired them responded simply: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?” (vss. 13-15).
Those who teach that God will reward each of His faithful followers equally suggest that the denarius in this parable represents eternal life (see, for example: Wright, 1980, 122:531; Coffman, 1974, p. 307), and since every worker received a denarius, the implication is that there can be no “degrees” of reward. This, however, cannot be what the parable is teaching. In his commentary on the book of Matthew, renowned biblical scholar R.C.H. Lenski explained why.
Those who think that the denarius is eternal life, of course, regard the evening as the final judgment or the hour of death. Even in this verse this cannot be the sense, for eternal life is neverearned by any man’s work. The combination of a)po/ with do/j (di/dwmi) means “give what is due.” Eternal life is never due anyone either at the time of its first bestowal in conversion or at the time of its full enjoyment when the believer enters heaven (1943, pp. 772-773, emp. added).
If this parable were speaking about final judgment, it would indeed provide a cogent argument for the equality of each person’s eternal reward. But is the parable addressing final judgment and eternal rewards? No, it is not. In Matthew 20:11 the text clearly indicates that the ones who worked all day “murmured against the householder.” In regard to those who did so, H. Leo Boles commented that “they were envious; their eyes were evil” (1952, p. 400). But the Scriptures make it clear that there will be no envy in heaven (Revelation 21:27). Lenski correctly observed: “Here, it ought to be plain, the possibility of making the denarius equal to eternal life is removed. The thought that a saint in heaven may murmur against God is appalling” (p. 775).
In addition, the master of the vineyard commanded the workers who labored in the field all day: “Take up that which is thine and go thy way” (vs. 14, emp. added). Lenski rendered the phrase, “Take up thine own and be gone,” and then observed:
This lord is done with him. And this is the climax of the parable. This u(/page [be gone] cannot mean, “Go and be content with thy wages!” It is exactly like the imperative found in 4:10, and always means to leave, cf., 8:13; 19:21.... This is a man who works in the church for what he can get out of the church. He has what he worked for—and nothing more. He is treated exactly as the hypocrites are who are mentioned in 6:2,5: “Verily, I say unto you, They have received their reward!” i.e., are paid in full.... Those who will learn nothing about divine grace even when they are working in the church will finally be left without this grace; those who are set on justice and refuse to go beyond it shall finally have justice (p. 777).
If we interpret the parable to mean that the master of the vineyard represents God, and the denarius represents eternal reward, how, then, are we to interpret the fact that those who worked all day received a denarius, but were sent away from the master of the vineyard? Can such a view be squared with Paul’s word in 1 Thessalonians 4:17—“And so shall we ever be with the Lord”?
If this parable is not discussing final judgment (and it is not), and if the denarius does not represent eternal life (and it does not), what, then, is the point of the parable? It appears that Christ was instructing His Jewish listeners about the Gentiles’ place in the Kingdom—a topic that, as we learn from later New Testament writings, became somewhat controversial among first-century Christians. The late Guy N. Woods, former editor of the Gospel Advocate, wrote concerning Christ’s discussion:
It is possible, indeed probable, in the minds of many scholars that it was delivered to show that the Gentiles, who came in at “the eleventh hour,” would enjoy in the kingdom (soon to be established when these words were uttered) the same privileges as the Jews who had been the favored and chosen people of the Lord for many centuries. Though last in point of invitation, they were to become first through their acceptance of, and dedication to, the gospel; whereas, the Jews, through their rebellion and disbelief, would be cut off (1976, p. 231, parenthetical comment in orig.).
Numerous conservative biblical commentators have suggested exactly such a view, including Adam Clarke (n.d. 5:194-197) and H. Leo Boles (1952, pp. 400-401). One writer by the name of Watts put it like this:
It is not the design of this parable to represent the final rewards of the saints at the day of judgment, but to show that the nation of the Jews, who had been called to be the people of God above a thousand years before, and had borne the burden and heat of the day, i.e., the toil and bondage of many ceremonies, should have no preference in the esteem of God above the Gentiles, who were called at the last hour, or at the end of the Jewish dispensation (as quoted in Woods, 1980, 122:532).
While the parable of the laborers established that all who are deserving (Jew or Gentile) would inherit a reward, it also emphasized God’s grace. As Lenski remarked:
The warning represented in this parable suggests our responsibility. If we close eye and heart against grace, no matter how high we stand in the church or how much we work, we shall lose life eternal (1943, p. 781).
But what of the denarius? What does it represent, if not eternal life? Lenski concluded—correctly, we believe—that the denarius represents the blessings one receives here on Earth by being a member of the Lord’s church.
The denarius paid at evening constitutes the temporal blessings connected with our Christian profession and work, and these blessings are made ours already during the entire time that we work. Every one of us gets his denarius; every one enjoys the same temporal benefits that are connected with life in the church. They come to the new convert exactly as they do to the old, to the preacher as well as to the [member], to the child as well as to the octogenarian (p. 772).

REASONS FOR UNEQUAL REWARDS

Lending credence to the idea that Jesus’ parable in Matthew 20 is not discussing equality of eternal rewards is the fact that the Bible plainly depicts certain people being awarded a unique and distinguished position in heaven. Revelation 15:3 notes that in heaven “they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.” Surely none of us would be so bold as to suggest that the hosts of heaven will sing a song about us as they do about Moses. Furthermore, in Revelation 21:14 John wrote that “the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” While we recognize the somewhat figurative nature of certain terms employed by John, the principle nevertheless remains: the apostles ultimately will occupy a place of greater preeminence in the heavenly abode. Also, Luke 16 portrays Abraham as having more prominence and authority in the afterlife than Lazarus. Consider also Mark 10:40, wherein James and John asked the Lord to allow them to sit next to Him in glory—one on His right side and one on His left. Jesus replied: “To sit on my right hand or on my left hand is not mine to give; but it is for them for whom it hath been prepared.” Some glorified beings (whether angelic or human) will occupy a place of distinction beside the Savior—a unique and special place reserved solely for them.
Some have argued against the idea of differing rewards by claiming that heaven will be perfect, and that something perfect can be neither improved nor diminished. However, Jesus observed that “even so there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more [joy] than over ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7, emp. added). In at least some sense, then, joy in heaven can differ in degrees. The principle of degrees of heavenly reward—which is taught quite plainly in Scripture—should motivate every Christian to “work while it is yet day, for the night cometh when no man can work” (John 9:4).

DEGREES OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT

But if there are degrees of reward in heaven, will there likewise be degrees of punishment in hell? Yes indeed. On several occasions, when speaking of eternal torment, the Bible mentions those who will suffer to a lesser or greater degree. And each time such a reference occurs, the punishment is proportionate to the opportunities missed. Those who are blessed with numerous opportunities to obey the gospel and still reject it will receive greater condemnation than those who have little or no occasion to accept Christ. Jesus echoed this sentiment in His rebuke to the inhabitants of the cities of Bethsaida and Chorazin.
Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto heaven? thou shalt go down unto Hades: for if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee (Matthew 11:21-24, emp. added).
Jesus offered this censure to those Jewish cities where He had done much of His preaching, and where, on occasion, He even had performed miracles. The citizens of those towns had more opportunity to accept the Messiah than many others living around them, yet they persisted in their rejection of Him. On the other hand, the Gentile cities of Tyre and Sidon—renowned for their wickedness—would receive a lesserpunishment at the Day of Judgment for the simple reason that they had been deprived of direct exposure to Christ’s message and miracles. All were to endure punishment, for all had rejected God’s law. But it would not be equal punishment. The writer of Hebrews further emphasized this point when he addressed the “sorer punishment” that was to befall those who had “trodden underfoot the Son of God” (10:29). Notice also Peter’s stinging statement regarding the terrible fate that awaits unfaithful, backsliding Christians:
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state is become worse with them than the first (2 Peter 2:20-21, emp. added).
If Peter’s statement teaches anything, it teaches degrees of punishment.
But perhaps the most convincing argument for the concept of degrees of punishment derives from Jesus’ parable of the wicked servant, as recorded in Luke 12:42-48.
And the Lord said, “Who, then, is the faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall set over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will set him over all that he hath. But if that servant shall say in his heart, ‘My lord delayeth his coming,’ and shall begin to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth not, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion with the unfaithful. And that servant, who knew his lord’s will, and made not ready, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom they commit much, of him will they ask the more” (emp. added).
The meaning of the last section of this parable is inescapable. All the wicked will be punished; however, those limited in their opportunities to learn about Christ will be punished “with fewer stripes” than those who knew the truth and obeyed it not.
Does the Bible teach degrees of reward in heaven? Yes, it does. Does it also teach degrees of punishment in hell? Yes, it does. The good news, of course, is that heaven’s offer of salvation is open to everyone (John 3:16; Romans 6:23). No one has to go to hell. When Christ was ransomed on our behalf (1 Timothy 2:4), He paid a debt He did not owe, and a debt we could not pay—so that we could live forever in the presence of our Creator (Matthew 25:46). God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11). Nor should we. As one writer put it: “No one who has been snatched from the burning himself can feel anything but compassion and concern for the lost” (Woodson, 1973, p. 32). As we discover the hideous nature of our sin, we not only should desire to save ourselves “from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40), but we also should be passionate about warning the wicked of their impending doom (Ezekiel 3:17-19).

REFERENCES

Boles, H. Leo (1952), A Commentary on the Gospel According to Matthew (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate).
Clarke, Adam (no date), Clarke’s Commentary (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury).
Coffman, Burton (1974), Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Abilene, Texas: ACU Press).
Kurfees, M.C., ed. (1921), Questions and Answers by Lipscomb and Sewell (Nashville, TN: McQuiddy).
Lenski, R.C.H. (1943), The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg).
Thompson, Bert (1999), My Sovereign, My Sin, My Salvation (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).
Thompson, Bert (2000a), “The Origin, Nature, and Destiny of the Soul—Part III,” Reason and Revelation, 20:33-39, May.
Thompson, Bert (2000b), “The Origin, Nature, and Destiny of the Soul—Part IV,” Reason and Revelation, 20:41-47, June.
Thompson, Bert (2000c), “The Origin, Nature, and Destiny of the Soul—Part V,” Reason and Revelation, 20:49-55, July.
Woods, Guy N. (1976), Questions and Answers (Henderson, TN: Freed-Hardeman University).
Woods, Guy N. (1980), “Editorial Note” accompanying an article by Cecil N. Wright, “Are There Degrees of Reward and Punishment in Eternity,” Gospel Advocate, 122:531-532, August 21.
Woodson, Leslie (1973), Hell and Salvation (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell).
Wright, Cecil N. (1980), “Are There Degrees of Reward and Punishment in Eternity,” Gospel Advocate, 122:531-532, August 21.

The Intelligent Design Movement [Part II] by Trevor Major, M.Sc., M.A.


http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=511

The Intelligent Design Movement [Part II]

by Trevor Major, M.Sc., M.A.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Part I of this two-part series appeared in the October issue. Part II follows below and continues, without introductory comments, where the first article ended.]

“Intelligent Design”

William A. Dembski, one of the leading figures in the intelligent design movement, uses the term “design” to denote (1999, p. 127):
  1. the scientific theory that distinguishes intelligent agency from natural causes;
  2. what it is about intelligently produced objects that enables us to tell that they are intelligently produced and not simply the result of natural causes; and
  3. intelligent agency itself.
All these uses, you will notice, make some reference to intelligence. Why should intelligence provide the logical foil to nature? Recall our earlier discussion on the definition of “natural.” One way to define this term is to say that it denotes something that is not artificial. A natural thing is the product of nature, whereas an artifact is the product of design. An artifact is a contrivance; it results from a decision to use skills or learned knowledge. Nature cannot learn, or make decisions. Moreover, only agents can have the intention to act upon something else. Nature is acted upon; it cannot have intentions. Only agents can have a purpose—a reason for acting. To be able to reason is a mark of intelligence. Recall also that the natural excludes minds and intelligences. Dembski emphasizes this point by talking repeatedly of intelligentagency and intelligent design.
Where we see evidence of design, we look for an agent. The blob of clay that little Johnny fashioned in art class is an artifact, but so is a jet airplane or a beaver’s dam. Each of these objects reflects different levels of skill, but that is not the issue. Each of these objects was made from natural things, but that is not the issue either. Even something like, say, polyester—that wonder of manmade materials—ultimately must come from something in this world. The real question is this: Is there anything about Johnny’s masterpiece that would distinguish it from any other object that has not received the purposeful attentions of an intelligent agent?
What if we cannot detect signs of intelligent design, even when we know that Johnny made his piece of art in school today? This false negative is not as much of a concern as a false positive (see Dembski, 1999, pp. 139-144). In Johnny’s case, we have background knowledge of his artistic endeavors. We might find a similar blob of clay on another occasion and wonder if Johnny has been busy again, but we might not know one way or the other. When we are actually on the lookout for design, and dump an artifact in the box marked “naturally caused,” we then have reached a false, negative conclusion about that object. In fact, for all we know Johnny is at the vanguard of a new movement in ceramics that seeks, on purpose, to create objects indistinguishable from nature. An intelligent, designing mind can do that, if it wants to.
However, if we find an object that appears to show signs of intelligence and we put it in the box marked “designed,” then we might have reached a false positive. The concern on the part of epistemic naturalists is that theists are partial to such false positives—viz., they have an almost uncontrollable urge to credit God with the design of undesigned things. As I noted earlier, this view is based on bad theology. And besides, God is not the automatic conclusion. All we have to do is determine whether the cause is intelligent. Nonetheless, epistemic naturalists have raised the avoidance of false positives to a virtue. This is why Richard Dawkins can admit that living things have the appearance of being designed, while expressing confidence—given his decision to eliminate intelligent causes a priori—that none of these things will end up in the wrong box.

Inferring Design

Dembski’s contribution is to address this fear of false positives by proposing a three-stage explanatory filter. He provides a rigorous proof in his technical monograph, The Design Inference (1998). A more accessible treatment of the subject can be found in his book, Intelligent Design (1999), to which I have referred previously.
Basically (and I emphasize that word so as not to underestimate the very precise formulation that Dembski has offered in his writings), there are three questions to ask of anything before we can say it is the product of necessity, chance, or design (Dembski, 1999, pp. 127-133). First, is it contingent? In other words, is it the case that the event had to happen, or that the object had to appear? If so, then it is necessary, not contingent. For example, when sodium and chloride ions are dissolved in water, and the water evaporates, salt crystals remain behind. This process follows a regular, law-like behavior. No matter how many times we repeat this experiment, the ingredients assemble themselves into tiny, cubic structures. An understanding of the underlying physics establishes the fact that they must form these crystals, which means they meet the criteria for necessity, not design. Something that is designed—that is the result of an agent making a decision—is contingent.
Second, is the object or event complex? The idea here is to trap any object that appears to be contingent, but, in fact, could be produced by chance. Basically (there’s that word again), a simple object or a short series of events has a high probability of producing something that might appear to be the product of design. For instance, if we were to paint the letters of the alphabet on the backs of house flies, we might observe that sometimes, when they alighted on the wall next to each other, the sequence of letters formed recognizable English words. On one occasion, for instance, we might observe the sequence “NO.” However, there is a high probability that two letters, when set next to each other, will form a word. So while there is nothing necessary about this arrangement, it is not sufficiently complex to pass any further through the explanatory filter.
Which brings us to the third and final question: Is the object or event specified? For instance, the guides who lead cave tours frequently draw visitors’ attention to stalagmites, stalactites, and other natural formations that appear to represent faces, coastlines, animals, or other recognizable objects. True, this often involves a healthy imagination, and we entertain few doubts that these shapes are the product of purely natural causes—namely, the random accumulation of calcite deposits. But we cannot afford to be too hasty. What if we were to wander into a cave and find consecutive shapes showing a reasonable likeness of the first forty American presidents arranged in chronological order? It is difficult indeed to imagine what law-like behavior could result in such a phenomenon. Additionally, forty shapes might seem sufficiently complex because there are many different ways to arrange a sequence of this length. But is it “specified”? By this, Dembski means that the sequence exhibits a suitable pattern, which, in this particular example, would be the presidents arranged in chronological order. If the images were somewhat vague, and the Washington-looking rock came after the Reagan-looking rock, we might have reason to believe that our enthusiastic tour guide could have made this sequence of shapes fit practically any pattern. If so, we would have a case of ad hoc fabrication, not a pattern showing proper specification.
In addition, the fact that no one predicted that this pattern was going to appear before the sequence was discovered does not matter. What does matter is that the historical order of presidents is independent of, or detachable from, the pattern we can see on the cave wall. For instance, we might discover (in regard to the cave wall pattern) that the seemingly random dripping of mineral-rich waters actually is being controlled by something above ground, which just happens to be the city of Washington, D.C. If so, then there might be no detachability, and thus no inference to design.
A couple of comments are in order. Note that the nature of the designer is not a concern. Whether the presidential display is the work of a high-school art class, or some reclusive, strange history buff with a penchant for sculpting limestone caves, does not matter. The explanatory filter works only to determine whether a designer is the most likely cause. Further, if design is suspected in nature, there is no appeal to miracles, but only to what the evidence may or may not suggest about an intelligent agency.
Note, also, that the explanatory filter can produce false negatives by failing to recognize objects, such as Johnny’s clay figurine, that were the product of intelligent agency. At the same time, it is unlikely, although not impossible, to arrive at a false positive—i.e., to allow something through the sieve that was, in fact, produced by wholly natural causes. Even so, there is nothing to stop the test being run again when new evidence comes to light. Something that once was thought to be designed might, on further examination, turn out to be the product of natural causes.
Intuitively, we know that design cannot be a concept that is foreign to science because there are disciplines of a scientific nature that seek to tease apart natural causes from intelligent agency. Dembski is not proposing a change in the way that these scientists work. All he has done is to formalize the process that they (and many of us) already use, and to show that the process can detect design in a reliable fashion.
One such discipline is forensic science. A typical task of forensic investigators is to determine the cause of death: Was it natural or suspicious? Should they be looking for a person—an agent—who caused this death? Another science is archaeology, which on a regular basis must distinguish genuine artifacts from stones, sticks, and other items that so often clutter excavation sites. One of the best-known examples of design detection is SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). The late Carl Sagan promoted this ongoing research program and featured it in his novel, Contact. This fictional work, which became a major motion picture starring actress Jodie Foster, provides a great angle on Dembski’s explanatory filter. The goal of the SETI program is to detect the activity of intelligent beings among the avalanche of radio noise arriving from outer space. The very existence of SETI proves that even self-confessed materialists (like Sagan) have well-honed intuitions when it comes to the detection of intelligent agency. All of these disciplines—forensic science, archaeology, and SETI—dispel the notion that science, by definition, cannot look for intelligent causes.

Updating Paley

Still, the objection is going to be this: We know there are people, but the existence of God is controversial. As Ernest Nagel has argued, “We have never run across a watch which has not been deliberately made by someone” (1992, p. 213). In other words, we know that there is a watchmaker; we do not know that there is a World Maker. But this begs the question, “Is there a World Maker?” There is no obvious way to get from “We don’t know” to “It cannot be.”
The skeptics likely will respond, “Yes, but there are plenty of reasons to deny that nature is the product of an intelligent cause.” Their favorite approach, at least going as far back as David Hume (and progressing forward to Charles Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould, et al.), is to point out the imperfections of nature. But this objection misses the mark entirely. If a watch does not keep time, then is it any less the product of an intelligent designer? The only way around this response is to say that, if there were a Creator-God, He must be pretty inept. Of course, this concedes that a Creator is at least a possibility. As for His being inept, that is another matter. How can we know that the less-than-perfect or “suboptimal” organ, system, or structure has not become so through time? My watch may be losing time now, but it might have run perfectly well before I dunked it in the ocean. And second, suboptimality is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, Gould is famous for talking about what he perceives to be the panda’s “clumsy” pseudothumb but, in fact, this particular appendage is an efficient tool for holding bamboo shoots and stripping off leaves (see Thompson, 1991).
How does talk about intelligent design differ from William Paley’s famous watchmaker argument? In its essential features, very little. As you may remember, Paley told the story of a man who found a stone and concluded rightly that it was a product of nature. Then this man found a watch and concluded (also rightly) that it was the product of a designer—a watchmaker. To hear the skeptics tell it, Paley’s arguments were crushed historically between Hume’s refutation in principle and Darwin’s refutation in fact.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Ironically, Paley’s argument relied on Hume’s principle of “uniform experience” to argue that wherever we see the “marks of contrivance, we are led for its cause to anintelligent author” (1802, p. 232, emp. in orig.). As for both Hume and Darwin, Paley argued that we do not need perfection, nor a clear understanding of function, to see evidence of design.
If we are going to de-emphasize Paley, it is on three grounds (Behe, 1996, pp. 211-216). The first is a matter of strategy. People have heard Paley put down so much that it is hard to get past centuries of prejudice. Second, although Paley used the best science available, some of his examples have not withstood the test of time (and on occasion he did tend toward overstatement of his case). Paley’s arguments need to be recast in the light of contemporary science and more judicious examples.
Third, when Paley used a watch as an analogy, he would describe a system of interacting components. Take away one wheel, one cog, or one gear, and the whole system would cease to function. Yet the bestbiological examples used by Paley, and the popular examples we tend to use today, are at the level of gross anatomy. In a way, these arguments can sound very compelling. The vertebrate eye, for example, has a number of discrete components: the lens, retina, muscles, pupil, and optic nerve. If any one of these parts is missing or damaged, vision is not possible.
The standard response since Darwin is to suppose that the eye could have been built component by component. It is easier for nature to take small steps, creating each part individually, than to take a giant leap creating an integrated whole. Richard Dawkins argued along these lines in his book, Climbing Mount Improbable (1996). All we need, according to this argument, is for the right components to come together at the right place and at the right time. The evolutionist presses his point with an analogy that goes something like this: begin with an English word, replace some of the letters and, just by chance, another English word can be reached after a number of steps. The following is a simple example:
BELIEVE
ELIEVE
EVLIEVE
EVLIVE
EVOLIVE
EVOLVE
By analogy, the argument goes, biology can produce something new and functional via the step-wise rearrangement of DNA bases, amino acids, or the components of an anatomical system. Dawkins suspects that nature “seems” designed because all we are seeing is the end product.
There are several problems with this analogy. First, there is a kind of “cheating” going on. The Dawkins fan who created the word puzzle above had a target, or goal, in mind. But, as Dawkins himself insists, evolution is blind; it is completely nonpurposive and undesigned. Nature has no “mind” in which it can visualize and formulate goals. Evolution’s equivalent to the Dawkins-like game would have Nature peeking through a tear in its blindfold. This is the same mistake Darwin made in his analogy from artificial selection. By definition, the farmer or agricultural researcher has a goal in mind, whether it be drought-resistant wheat or higher milk fat production.
Incidentally, evolutionists draw attention to the use of this technique in fields such as chemical engineering, software programs, and origin-of-life experiments. In each case, the idea is to generate a huge number of variations and then, along the way, test to see which one best meets the goals laid out at the beginning of the experiment. Often, such techniques are called “Darwinian” or “evolutionary.” That they work in the “real world” of business and technology is supposed to legitimize evolution as a useful endeavor and a pervasive feature of our world. But in all of these examples, there is a clear goal in mind. As long as there is a goal, we are not dealing with long-term, large-scale evolution as Darwin envisioned it. This is merely another version of the shell game that I mentioned in Part I of this series.
Second, and more significantly, you will notice that none of the intermediate words in this game has any meaning. The words “believe” and “evolve” are known to play a role in our language. But the intervening words are nonsense; they serve no purpose whatsoever in our language. Imagine, then, that the word “believe” corresponds to a biological system of some kind, and that the life of an organism depends on possessing one of these BELIEVEs. If it lost the B part, and was left with an ELIEVE, the system would break down, and the organism would die. Death, to put it bluntly, is not a good survival mechanism.
Behe’s counter-response to the evolutionists is to apply Paley’s watch analogy to more suitable biological examples. The components should not be discrete, nor self-contained, but should be essential to the functioning of the system. In this way, there are no “steps” to the functionality we see here and now; the system must appear—suddenly—in its entirety.

Black Boxes

To make the analogy stronger, Behe urges that creationists no longer employ arguments using gross anatomy. Although he believes it is unlikely that nature assembled the components of vertebrate vision, for instance, he thinks that evolutionist still could make a plausible, step-wise argument. Or, consider the panda’s pseudothumb. Ideally, we want to suggest that this appendage certainly is well designed. But, Behe argues, we cannot make a case for design unless we show that the parts could not have come together by, say, fortuitous mutations.
At first glance, such an argument might seem to concede too much. However, Behe is not suggesting that the panda’s pseudothumb came about accidentally; rather, he is arguing only that it remains to be shown that it did, or did not, come together accidentally. So Darwinists and design theorists are in the same boat until all the evidence is in. In Behe-speak, the various parts that compose the panda’s “thumb” might turn out to be a collection of discrete systems—what he refers to as “black boxes” (a term borrowed from engineers). For instance, I can install a hard drive in my computer without having to coat any disks, solder any wires, or write any programs. As far as I am concerned, my hard drive is just one black box that can be hooked up to a number of other black boxes that make up my computer.
What we are looking for instead, Behe argues, is not just complex arrangement of parts, but irreduciblecomplexity. We want to dig down deep enough until we find no more black boxes. With sufficient knowledge, for instance, I could analyze my hard drive and see, perhaps, that there were no further subsystems. I might learn that it could not work without the platters, the heads, or the on-board controller. It does not matter whether the case is made of aluminum or gold, or whether there are six platters or only one. Just like with Paley’s watch, all of the interacting parts must be present for the system to function properly.
When you stop to think about it, creationists need that “out.” We need to be able to say that, on the gross anatomical level, certain modified or novel structures can be the result of random mutations, and that natural selection could preserve those mutations that are not harmful to the organism. For instance, the Bactrian camel has two humps, while the Arabian camel has only one. Clearly, a structure (a second hump) appears on the one camel that does not appear on the other. But why? Perhaps God created each species separately, or perhaps nature has produced a variation on a theme. To deny the second option outright is to say, in effect, that species are fixed (a concept that is difficult, if not impossible, to defend; see Major, 1993). What we want to allow is that variation is possible, and that new species can arise, but that the amount of variation (i.e., microevolution) is limited unless we can add new information. Perhaps the second hump of the Bactrian camel, considered structurally, is no different from its first hump, and thus adds no more information. So, yes, God could have created these two camel species, but it also is possible that the second hump is nothing more than a cobbling together of existing structures by mutation (or, conversely, is the end result of a mutation that reduced the original number of humps).
However, to suggest that camels’ humps and pandas’ “thumbs” have resulted from the cobbling together of black boxes does not prove macroevolution. To suggest that it does is to make the same mistake as Darwin, Dawkins, and others who would “explain” the eye by putting together a number of discrete components. But this sidesteps the question of how the components came together to make all those black boxes in the first place.
For Behe, the crucial arguments about irreducible complexity will take place at the level of biochemistry—an area of science that was not available to either Paley or Darwin. In the opening pages of his book, Dr. Behe talks about the biochemistry of vision within the retina. We now know, he says, that the retina is at the level of a black box, which means the biochemistry of vision is irreducibly complex. Take out one step at the biochemical level, and vision is not possible. You cannot cobble these parts together; all the components have to be present and interacting at once in order for the system to work. That is something that neo-Darwinian evolution is ill-equipped to explain.
Behe’s search for irreducible complexity is the equivalent of Dembski’s specification-complexity criterion described earlier. His efforts to rule out random mutations, for instance, parallel Dembski’s discussion of chance and complexity. This work is an example of putting intelligent design into practice as a research program (Dembski, 1999, p. 228). Similar efforts within the ID movement seek to move beyond the conceptual issues addressed by Johnson, Dembski, and others (see Johnson, 2000, pp. 14-15).

CONCLUSION

The purpose of this review has been to highlight the positive aspects of the intelligent design movement. Admittedly, there are some off-putting aspects as well. All I can do at this point is encourage readers to exercise due regard, as they should with any human author.
Allow me to relate a personal experience with the ID movement. When I first heard Phillip Johnson make his pitch for intelligent design at the International Conference on Creationism in 1994, I came away with severe misgivings. At different times during his speech (e.g., when he was attacking naturalism), I found myself in hearty agreement. At other times, I wondered what on Earth he was doing there. Here he was, at the premier meeting of young-Earth creationists, telling his listeners that they were wasting their time on the age-of-the-Earth issue. It led to splintering and factionalism within the religious community, he said, and is not relevant to the dominant culture. He explained his personal decision to remove the debate from the Bible-science context or, more specifically, any defense of the Genesis account. Here is my own transcript of this point from the speech he gave that night:
And so I thought it was tremendously important to focus on the scientific and philosophical issues, and so I declared at the beginning that I would not discuss the biblical account at all, or have anything to say about it, and to completely put behind any question about matters such as the age of the earth....my approach will be just simply to take for granted as an assumption of whatever the authorities wanted to say on that point.
Johnson altered his view slightly when a young-Earth creationist friend reminded him that those same authorities were the ones who dogmatically asserted that materialistic evolution is a “fact.” Since then, he has softened his stance toward young-Earth creationists to the point that he resists attempts to marginalize this group within the ID camp. Anyone who has challenged the suggestion of the alleged factuality of evolution has been shunned by the gatekeepers of scientific orthodoxy. It would be ironic, to say the least, if the same kind of treatment then were extended by some within the ID movement to those (i.e., young-Earth creationists) who definitely are allies of that movement. Indeed, Johnson now envisions a Big Tent approach in which all the opponents of epistemic naturalism can gather, regardless of whether they are young-Earth or old-Earth creationists. And as strange as it may sound at first, Johnson even would welcome nontheists, as long as they admitted to being skeptical of epistemic naturalism.
Our task is to separate the wheat from the chaff—to use the best that the ID movement has to offer, while at the same time retaining an innate respect for the Bible’s specific teachings regarding the age of the Earth and related matters. There is much to be gained by tapping into arguments that are able to refine the concept of inherent design—a concept that, after all, is a core belief of young-Earth creationism.
There also is a place for framing the debate in terms of Intelligent Design vs. Naturalism. It represents a way to deal with evolution in various contexts, such as public schools, where any mention of God or the Bible closes the door to any further discussion. Most important, perhaps, it is a way to diagnose and teach our brethren who have adopted epistemic naturalism, and yet do not comprehend or understand the tensions they have created within their own faith.

REFERENCES

Behe, Michael J. (1996), Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: The Free Press).
Dawkins, Richard (1996), Climbing Mount Improbable (New York: W.W. Norton).
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