GSI Seminar Sample:
Our Creator's Character
or a distorted
Caricature?
© Sid Galloway BS, M.Div.
Just an old sheepdog of the Good Shepherd
Genesis 1:1
Communicating conclusions from 100's of PhD scholars
Supporting the authority of His Word
& the consistency of His character
Human Rights? Slavery? - Animal Rights? Cruelty?
What about God's right to command compassion for all of His creatures?
Caricature =
"exaggeration by means of ludicrous distortion of ... characteristics"
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/caricature)
Character of the Creator -
Good Shepherd or Anti-Shepherd
The majority of people on Earth are convinced that creation was created by a Creator who is "good". This means that they believe our Creator is not only an eternal Being who transcends space and time with the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, but also a Being who has the character of omni-benevolence (i.e., "all good").
How did the image of God in Christ replace the old Greco-Roman images of malevolent deities like Zeus, et al, in the lives of a whole culture, an entire empire?
Dr. Thomas Matthews, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art, Princeton University Press, 2003, 6-8.
"The new images should not be thought of as simply filling up the voids left by the overthrow of the old, but as actively competing with the old images. The lanky Good Shepherd of Early Christian art wrestled with the muscular Hercules and won; we find him replacing the mighty god on the funerary tables used for offerings to the dead." [Emphasis Added]
How is the image of the Good Shepherd now being replaced and returned to the characterless and impotent "values" of the old pagan societies?
Dr. J. D. Hunter, University of Virginia, Dept of Sociology:
"The Evangelical world is not only difficult for outsiders to understand (consider the caricatures that abound) but also nearly impossible for them to penetrate" . . . .
"Character is formed in relation to convictions and is manifested in the capacity to abide by those convictions even in, especially in, the face of temptation. . . . . Values are truths that have been deprived of their commanding character. . . . . We want character but without unyielding conviction; ... strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame; ... virtue but without justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; ... decency without the authority to insist upon it; ... moral community without any limitations to personal freedom ... we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it."
[Emphasis Added]THE DEATH OF CHARACTER: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil, 2001,
Dr. James Davison Hunter, University of Virginia, Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory. Since 1995, Professor Hunter has served as the Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, a university-based, interdisciplinary research center concerned with understanding contemporary cultural change and its implications for individuals, institutions, and society.
Note below Dr. Hunter's analysis of the foundational cornerstone upon which effective character and morality must be based - i.e., the root of "good" consequent fruit:
". . . benevolent consequences ... [are] not rooted in a desire to change the world... but rather ... an expression of a desire to honor the creator of all goodness, beauty, and truth."
TO CHANGE THE WORLD: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, 2010, Dr. James Davison Hunter, University of Virginia, Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory.
** Qualification - while Matthews' and Hunter's books are helpful, scholarly analyses of cultural morality throughout history going back to the beginning - i.e., Creation, nevertheless a consistently moral worldview can only be fully biblical if it is based upon the character of the Creator of Eden ---
not "survival of the fittest", violent pain, fear, dysfunction, disease, death.
When you think about God,
what image comes to your mind?
How do you know if it is accurate?
What about the God of the Bible?
Are you sure you know what it really says about God?
Is the presentation of God in the Old Testament the same as in the New?
Is the Medieval Roman Catholic view of God biblically accurate?
What about the Reformers presentation of God?
How about Oprah's view, or the ones in recent Hollywood movies? Accurate or distorted caricatures?
If the Bible really is God's self-revelation in history (His/story),
then it is our source for knowing His true character as the infinite and eternal Creator of all things from the beginning - transcending His created space/time/matter/energy universe. The Bible from Genesis to the Revelation reveals our Creator as a Good Shepherd of self-sacrificial love, not a Great Predator of "survival of the fittest" (not an Anti-Shepherd).
Sadly, many theological scholars, for whom I have great respect in many areas, are locked into traditions and need to more fully reform their "Doctrine of God". We all are finite, fallible people who see (interpret) things through perceptual filters filled with traditional, cultural assumptions - not to mention the peer pressure of academic political correctness. Please remember that political correctness is not always "liberal". Those of us in "conservative" circles, both theologically and politically, are subject to the same temptations and tendencies to "fear men" and follow the path of greatest peer esteem. I plead with my fellow believers (both scholars and non-scholars) to beware of these peer pressure tendencies.
Please think carefully about the implications that your doctrine of creation inescapably has regarding the doctrine of the character of our Creator. If you and your exegesis bow to the prevailing majority opinion in the shifting fields of science, then your "theo-ology", the conclusions of your study of God, are at risk of becoming less than biblical.
For example, if you include in your theology of creation that suffering, dysfunction, disease, and death (of nephesh creatures) existed before Adam's sin and separation from God, then you have grossly distorted the image and character of our Creator. You have unwittingly portrayed the Creator as a Great Predator, the Author of "survival of the fittest", pain, fear, suffering, and death, instead of the truth. Unintentionally, such compromise become functional blasphemy.
Unavoidably connected to the above compromise is the common error of embracing the majority hypothetical assumptions about the fossil record and the age of the earth. To embrace the majority assumption that the fossils in rock layers represent millions of years of nephesh death and suffering prior to Adam's sin and separation, effectively denies or at least undercuts, the doctrine that "the wages of sin is death". Please remember that the majority does not prove authority. Majority opinion, especially in science, has often been overturned to the shame and embarrassment of those who trusted it as fact.
True science and Scripture are complementary, not contradictory. The globally catastrophic flood, comprehensively understood, fully explains the fossils and rock layers as post-fall effects of sin and separation. Such horror and death did not exist before Adam's sin and separation. Surely it was not the design of God as His Way of survival of the cruelest.
Please, do your homework. We are all busy and must decide where to invest our time in research, writing, teaching, etc. In this light, be aware that the best research and writings (and summary DVD's) from leading creationists scholars in science and theology are easily available to you. You have no excuse, my friends. To claim ignorance regarding the basic evidences now known about how the best of science (astrophysics, geophysics, biology, genetics) supports the natural, simple reading of creation and the flood in Scripture, is an intellectual cop out. (see the "Resources" links to get a start)
Creationists and the Media
Did you know that 1,000's of PhD scholars are creationists?
Do you know who they are?
Is it possible the media & politically correct academia have manipulated you?
Are you certain your image of creationists is accurate and fair?
An example of a false creationists caricature:
Since the following sample scientists are real . . .
. . . why do PBS, Dawkins, et al pretend that
no reputable scientists
doubt macroevolution?
(Macroevolution = vertical change into new kinds by mutational errors)
Are Dawkins, et al simply ignorant of truth or deliberately deceptive?
Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, PhD (Physical Chemistry)
Dr. Sarfati, blindfold, simultaneously playing 12 chess opponents
"Dr Jonathan Sarfati obtained a B.Sc. (Hon's.) in Chemistry with two physics papers substituted (nuclear and condensed matter physics). His Ph.D. in Chemistry was awarded for a thesis entitled ‘A Spectroscopic Study of some Chalcogenide Ring and Cage Molecules’. He has co-authored papers in mainstream scientific journals on high-temperature superconductors and selenium-containing ring- and cage-shaped molecules."
"One of Jonathan’s other passions is chess, and like most things that he undertakes, he sets a standard few in the world can match. A former New Zealand Chess Champion, he represented New Zealand in three Chess Olympiads, and he has drawn a tournament game with former world champion Boris Spassky (chess players might want to play through the game here). The International Chess Federation (abbreviated to FIDE for its French name Fédération Internationale des Échecs) awarded him the title of F.I.D.E. Master (FM) in 1988. At many CMI conferences and camps, he has become famous for his ‘chess challenges’ against multiple players simultaneously—while blindfolded, with his ‘seeing’ opponents’ moves called out to him. At a recent CMI event in Sydney, Australia, he achieved a ‘personal best’ by playing 12 opponents at once in this way.4 A visiting creationist, a full professor at a leading UK university, was ‘text messaging’ his wife, saying ‘this is astounding—world-class—the world’s media should be here!’"
Atheist, Dr. Richard Dawkins of Oxford says:
"No reputable scientists doubt it [evolution]"
p. 9, The Greatest Show on Earth
However, Dawkins is fully aware of the 1,000's of respected scientists who now reject macro (vertical) evolution. See the following sample lists of scientists:
- Discovery Institute List: Dissent from Darwinism
- CMI List of Creation Scientists
- AiG List of Creation Scientists
The sincere question each of us is responsible to ask & answer
by careful examination of the evidence is:
Which scientific interpretation best fits the evidence?
If you choose to refuse to thoroughly investigate and come to a truly informed and evidential decision, then you have chosen the "blind faith" that you accuse others of embracing.
The choice is yours.
