I previously posted the abstract of a talk I gave at Calvin last month in which I test-drove my "theistic embryology" metaphor that I'll present at the North American Paleontological Convention in Cincinnati in two weeks. Now the audio and my simple slides are posted on Calvin's e-zine, Minds in the Making. Lots of jokes. And now my name's spelled right.
About halfway through, I refer to "10 dangers of theistic evolution" at Answers in Genesis. Later I read from Jerry Coyne's steaming pile. And speaking of steaming piles, I then read from one of my favorite posts in The Cesspool. In case you wanted to follow along.
5 comments:
Maybe I still am confused about the academic freedom of teachers at Calvin.
Pulling this from their site:
3.6.4 Academic Freedom
Every faculty member, whether tenured or untenured, shall be entitled to the right of academic freedom in the performance of his or her duties. The faculty member shall be judged only by the confessional standards of Calvin College, and by the professional standards appropriate to his or her role and discipline. A faculty member shall not be expected or required to retract or modify his or her utterances merely because a complaint against them has been received. Only complaints which allege a violation of confessional or professional standards shall be considered, and then only when the evidence supporting the allegation is more substantial than rumor or hearsay.
This was also pulled from Calvin's site:
Calvin College faculty members are required to subscribe to three historic Reformed forms of unity--The Belgic Confession, The Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort--and pledge to teach, speak, and write in harmony with the confessions.
So when speaking of academic freedom, a professors freedom is bound by his acceptance of the three previously mentioned historic Reformed forms of unity. If then a professor can be shown that he/she is teaching outside of the confessional standards then that professor has violated the rules that he agreed upon pertaining to academic freedom.
Like the Belgic Confession:
"We believe that God created man out of the dust of the earth"
Heidelberg Catechism:
"Question 7. Whence then proceeds this depravity of human nature?
Answer: From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise; hence our nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin.
As well as the Canons of Dordt which affirms the existence of Adam many times and his relation to the origin of sin.
In your lecture I don't think you really talked much about the ideas behind theistic embryology. Which is understandable as that wasn't the point of your lecture. Though I think it is obvious, after having read some of the other posts on your blog that your views are slightly different then the views held by those whom wrote the above confessions. Surely we can assume that the authors did not know about the theory of evolution and surely not 'theistic embryology' what ever exactly that may mean. You've written before on your site about 'common descent'. I think its safe to assume that you do not believe in the Biblical Adam depicted in Genesis as being the first ancestor of the human race.
Question 7 of the Heidelberg Catechism states quite plainly that Adam and Eve were our first parents. Presumably at one point you agreed to be a professor at Calvin under the assumption that you would teach by these confessional standards. Though in teaching theistic embryology you are certainly going against the doctrine written to clarify ones beliefs by these various churches hundreds of years ago.
Course the fact that you are actually speaking on it in school makes me wonder where I'm so confused. It just seems obvious to me from what I have read from the Calvin site that teaching something that goes against what the three confessions state is simply a violation of academic freedom.
I have a feeling that this will end up breaking down into what is considered a violation of the confessions. But I'll not jump ahead until I know for sure.
Also-
You made quite a few comments about people not making arguments against theistic evolution but either the theistic part or the evolution part. Well what do you expect? A Christian isn't going to attack theistic evolution as a whole because they hold to some of the beliefs just not all of them. Same with an atheist, they will attack the theistic part and have no gripes with the evolutionary part. Why would you expect someone to argue specifically against the entire thought? Unless one was say Buddhist, then surely someone would say “yep you've got the whole thing wrong, so I'm going to critique it as a whole”.
Why should it surprise you that someone only has issue with certain parts of a presented belief system? Is there something so wrong with that?
John, I believe some of my colleagues do note that they see Article 14 of the Belgic differently than the original authors would have, specifically with regard to death resulting from the fall. I've considered making that note but chose not to (at least for now) because I don't think it's terribly important. If I thought that others in our Reformed community considered the specific issue of physical death & the fall to be of dogmatic centrality then I would probably make an official note. Elsewhere in my writing, including here on this blog, I've made it clear that the narrative of the fall, specifically wrt death, is indeed an issue in need of careful thought.
Creation from the dust, on the other hand, has no important ramifications for evolution for Christians that I can see, unless you want to argue that the writers of the Confession meant to assert instantaneous creation-by-fiat as Reformed dogma. No Reformed person that I know makes this claim, and it certainly isn't an issue at Calvin. If you want to understand academic freedom wrt evolution at Calvin, you could start by reading what I've written elsewhere, or you could peruse the history of Calvin which I cite.
BTW, you are wrong to assume that I don't accept Adam as a common ancestor. I am undecided about how to conceive of Adam & Eve, but see some promising options. In any case, I think you're confused about what academic freedom means; my teaching on evolution, which is widely known and echoed by nearly all scientists at Calvin, is certainly not a "violation of academic freedom" -- it is the opposite.
As to attacks on TE, it seems you missed the only important point I tried to make. An attack on T is of course an attack on TE, but it's not a specific attack on TE. Ditto for an attack on E. I'm calling out the atheists and creationists who claim that there's something wrong with TE as TE. They never get it right. The only problem that we TE/EC's have to worry about is this one: how does an ancient earth that is home to an ancient tree of life serve as the setting for a narrative of creation-fall-redemption as presented by Reformed Christian belief? As I say in the abstract, most attacks on TE are attacks on T or attacks on E and should be dealt with as such.
Steve-
I appreciate your response to my post. Just out of curiosity, do all of the Biology professors at Calvin teach from a common descent/theistic embryology/theistic evolution perspective? Is it taught as a popular theory or as fact (as it would be from a public institution)? Do creationist professors and students feel 'safe' or do they feel as though they are looked down upon? I would be curious as to what 'room' there is for differing beliefs at Calvin in this area. Whether it be room allowed by the professors or by the students. I personally find there is a difference in sending ones child to a school that belittles Christian values and that which belittles different Christian doctrine, especially if it is done in a snide manner. That information really is not of utter importance though it would be interesting to learn about.
Excuse my wrongful assumption, I would be interested nonetheless in what things you may be mulling over as as you had said, “possible options”.
I personally have a strong interest in the creation account and all things related. I do think it is quite important that man is responsible through his own choice for his depraved nature and that it is not God whom gave it to him. I think that evolution has a difficult time explaining the fall of man and that it comes down to more then just the fall, though its difficult to know where to start as so many people have so many different assumptions. That in itself can make things very complicated and drawn out. I think one must also be careful on how they read Genesis. Genesis is pretty chronological and if one chooses to question the historicity of a story then they must answer as to why preceding stories reflect back on it (one argument being: listed people in a genealogy etc...)
As to attacks on TE, it seems you missed the only important point I tried to make. An attack on T is of course an attack on TE, but it's not a specific attack on TE. Ditto for an attack on E. I'm calling out the atheists and creationists who claim that there's something wrong with TE as TE.
If one stone in an arch is missing the whole arch collapses. So if one of the important elements of TE is being questioned, then it could possibly collapse the entire proposition of TE. Why would it matter if that specific part of TE also applies to other topics? When a prosecutor tries to prove his case he doesn't try and be creative and come up with an accusation that only applies specifically to the case. No he is going to choose the easiest way he can that still proves his case, why should it matter if its the same technique he has used in 300 other cases? Why do you call out the atheists and creationists whom attack TE in the way that they do? An attack is an attack, if the attack holds ground then respond to it. I still don't understand why would you feel the need to point out that some people are using 'general' attacks or complaints, it just doesn't seem to serve a point.
Well, John, first of all I'm sorry that you don't understand the point of identifying issues specific to TE. I've said all I can.
Re the environment at Calvin, I think evolution is generally taught as a superior explanation, not as a "popular theory" or as a "fact." I do think we should pay attention to those who feel marginalized by the acceptance of evolutionary theory by the science faculty, but I haven't heard specific complaints and my teaching of the subject is strongly pastoral in nature. The balance is difficult, and is not achieved by just being nice.
To read about ideas on the fall and human history, see David Young's excellent article on the subject.
Post a Comment