Advanced Adventist Theology & Debate

Limited Errancy

101.09 Lesson 9 In lesson 4, I pointed out that human knowledge is the product of two inherently limited pathways: our senses and our reason, and the potential of a third: revelation. As life does not come with an instruction manual, we negotiate the interplay between these pathways by building models, each of which rests on different assumptions. And, rather than trying to demonstrate that one of these models is the correct one, we select the most plausible ones as simultaneously viable and then evaluate new models based on how they measure up to those already above the viability threshold. ...

Limited Errancy 101.09 Lesson 9 In lesson 4, I pointed out that human knowledge is the product of two inherently limited pathways: our senses and our reason, and the potential of a third: revelation. As life does …

New post on atheism

On Atheism 101.05 Lesson 5 A majority of atheists today approach the question of the existence of God from a particular angle that leads to faulty conclusions. They might, for example, say, ‘God very likely d…

How would you define Adventism?

This is mine:

Regarding Criticism of Adventist Theology

1. Modern Christian Academia accommodates a wide variety of theological views, both liberal and conservative.

2. While conservative theologies struggle with things like science and critical scholarship, they persist in academia because liberal theologies have their share of problems: they lack continuity with the apostolic faith and lack precision in theological method (uncertainty).

3. SDA Theology fits comfortably within the more conservative side of the theological landscape.

4. Conservative criticisms of SDA theology are universally flawed, either because they misunderstand Adventist theology (or confuse it with heretical groups inside the church, ex. LGT, Historic Adventism, etc.) or because they misunderstand theology in general. Adventism is somewhat unique among conservative groups because it rejects both classical and process theism, it rejects all forms of dualism, it rejects inerrancy while maintaining a high view of Scripture, and relies on the Cosmic Conflict as a unifying, overarching theme for Scripture in order to avoid other unifying frameworks coming from tradition, philosophy, etc. As a denomination, we are under no obligation to accept these philosophical speculations, and the rest of our theology is an outgrowth of these starting presuppositions. (see Roger Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief, for acceptable diversity in Christian Theology)

5. Liberal criticisms of SDA theology are more legitimate. But while Adventist theologians should be doing more to address these, our theology is no worse off in reference to these criticisms than any other conservative group. If there is room in Christian academia for these other groups, there is room for us as well.

6. This incessant barrage of groundless criticism from both outside and inside the denomination over many decades has had a tremendous psychological impact on our people. In response to the abuse, people tend to react in one of two ways. On one side, those who don’t want to give up on Adventist theology either start focusing their attention elsewhere (evangelism, missions, pastoring, administration, etc.), take a head-in-the-sand approach, and pretend the issues don’t exist, or else become dogmatic. On the other side, people either abandon SDA theology altogether or worse, they try to introduce unnecessary fixes using incompatible theological components borrowed from elsewhere. Only a small group remains pressing forward with the Adventist theological project, usually overworked and able to address only a small fraction of what needs to be done.

7. This unnecessary hemorrhaging of the Adventist intellectual capital needs to stop if we will ever accomplish anything as a movement. Those who value the Adventist theological project should make this a priority.

Methodological Naturalism & the Supernatural

I believe that anyone who understands science will have to agree with the following:

Consider a hypothetical scenario (hypothetical so that even those who disagree with the premises could still agree that the conclusions follow). Imagine that God decides to create a universe like ours and starts off by setting up the conditions for the Big Bang. From there, the universe begins to expand by natural means up to a point where God decides that He wants things to develop somewhat differently, so He steps in and makes some adjustments and then allows things to continue their natural course. The nature of the scientific methodology is such that it lacks the capacity to detect those instances of divine interference.

The only way that science can approach any such event in the distant past is to propose naturalistic hypotheses, make predictions, and test those predictions. If the predictions fail, other naturalistic hypotheses are proposed. Eventually, some naturalistic hypothesis might seem to work, and it could take decades, even centuries before we can figure out that it doesn’t.

Theoretically, the only way to arrive at a supernatural hypothesis under such circumstances would be to first exhaust all naturalistic hypotheses and then turn to the supernatural by elimination (see graphic). In practice, however, this would not work because we can never be sure that, if more time passes, we might not eventually be able to come up with yet another naturalistic hypothesis that we didn’t think of before.

Therefore, the scientific methodology lacks the capacity to detect such supernatural interference.

——

A potential workaround:

In a situation where we currently have a hypothesis that seems to work, but the possibility still exists that it might prove inadequate in the long run, a solution might be to make space for an alternative hypothesis that tests the supernatural option by finding a way to convert it to a naturalistic hypothesis (some supernatural claims can be reimagined as natural claims). This would allow us to test ideas that we might never otherwise think to test - when working under a purely naturalistic paradigm - without tampering with methodological naturalism.

We live life within worldviews, and all worldviews ultimately place their faith in something:
Catholic/Orthodox: Apostolic succession, tradition, Plato, Aristotle
Mainstream Protestant: Scripture + Early Tradition
Liberal Protestant: Experience, Morality
Other Religions: ex. Mohamed, Buddha, etc.
Atheism: A naturalistic explanation for everything that exists

The Absurdity of Causal Closure

Some time during the Enlightenment, someone got the bright idea that, because the universe is mechanistic and everything operates within a domino chain of cause and effect, it is not possible for any outside element to tamper with the system, even God. Just the other day I listen to a lecture about how this is a problem for Christianity.

I cannot for the life of me understand how people still take this argument seriously in an age when we have MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) with programmers constantly making updates while millions of people are playing 24/7.

Am I missing something?

The Cosmic Conflict Gospel Backdrop

The central premise of the cosmic conflict paradigm is that humanity’s sinful history is a demonstration of limited duration allowed for the purpose of securing the universe against sin for the rest of eternity. What this means for individual human beings stuck in this predicament is that:

1. It was not our choice to be born here
2. We were born with a fallen nature that often makes obedience very difficult (again, not our choice)
3. Our fallen nature is with us from birth while our intellect and moral maturity often takes several decades to develop, by which time we have deeply ingrained habits that are difficult to change
4. Things are further affected by whether we are lucky enough to be born in a good family or not, which most people aren’t
5. There are highly intelligent, spiritual beings actively trying to trip us up.
6. Life can be really hard and the chance of suffering quite high
7. We are often faced with moral ambiguity and theological complexities that are difficult to navigate even for the brightest among us

These are not excuses but an objective assessment of our condition, if the cosmic conflict paradigm is correct.

In this scenario, God’s primary concern is if any human beings, even after being taken to heaven and given a new, sinless nature, and, even after being given a full revelation of the entire great controversy, the full history of sin and evil and of the love of God in Christ, that they would still so stubbornly cling to sin that they’d want to start a second rebellion.

Otherwise, God’s baseline outlook towards human beings is one of extreme pity and grace, justified by our status as casualties of a war that transcends us. It is against this backdrop that all subsequent gospel formulations should be developed.

A Pre-Advent Judgment is Logically Necessary within a Cosmic Conflict Paradigm

If humanity’s sinful history is meant as a demonstration, then some time before the end of this demonstration, an evaluation should occur of all that has transpired, to determine if the case has been adequately made. This evaluation, of course, would not be for God’s sake but for the sake of heavenly intelligences, since the demonstration was for them to begin with. The logical timing of this evaluation would be towards the end of the demonstration, when all the data is in, but before the demonstration is brought to a close (second coming), in case any question remains unsettled and might still need to be addressed. The Investigative Judgment would be a subset of this ‘evaluation’ since God’s dealings with sinners are part of what’s under evaluation.

https://youtu.be/JCe0EkgHtQ8

23. Positioning Adventist Theology 2 I explain a graphic I made that explains the position of Adventist theology in contrast with other theological approaches.