Category Archives: Jesus

What Are We Defending? Territorial Claims Upon the Imago Dei

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If you have not read the previous post on this blog, “The Assumptions We Bring to the Table,” perhaps you should pause here and read that first—then come back and read this post, for I am aware that I am bringing, if not assumptions to the table, at least a particular perspective to the table. I am relatively new to the Science and Religion discourse; my own background is in Bible and Christian Ministries, so I will not pretend to be an expert in Science or even in the broader field of Religion.

Yesterday, in class, we discussed humanity and the imago Dei (image of God). The most commonly referenced verse for the imago Dei is Genesis 1:26-27 “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (English Standard Version). This verse, along with a few others (Ps. 8.3-6; Gen. 5.1-2; Gen. 3.22; Rom. 8.29; 2 Cor. 4.4; Col. 1.15), has led to myriad speculations as to just what is the imago Dei that has been passed onto humanity, as well as led to the claim that human beings must be “uniquely unique” among the rest of creation.

However, if one is to espouse Darwinian evolution (as most biological scientists do—including those who claim “theistic evolution” or “intelligent design”), then one must concede that humans are no more naturally unique than any other unique species that has ever existed. Furthermore, any trait or function or relational ability that humans exhibit, would have come from evolutionary processes, rather than being independently conferred upon them by a Creator.

Not long into the class discussion, tensions began to rise. If one were not to look more closely, it would have appeared that those who bring a Christian perspective to the table were eager to maintain humanity’s uniqueness based upon the imago Dei, and that others—who were less eager to defend a particular theological position—found it easier to dispose of, or at least redefine, what it means to be “uniquely” human.

Now, I want to point out that it is not merely Christians who believe human uniqueness; many people live as if they—as humans—are unique even if they don’t state such a stance. As simple examples, notice the difference in support between “human rights” and “animal rights”—the former is punishable by international law while the latter is usually only supported by activist groups, or consider scientific experiments which use non-human animals as test subjects before using human subjects. The idea of human uniqueness is not isolated to Christianity or other religions. However, it does appear the Christians are keen to actively defend such a position based upon the imago Dei passages within the Bible.

My question—especially to Christians—is this: What are we defending? Are we defending God? Or the imago Dei itself? Are we defending the belief that Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully human? Or are we defending the truthfulness of Scripture? Maybe we are defending human culpability for sin and repentance? Or humanity’s dominion? Or perhaps merely our own sense of importance?

Here are some other questions. Is it possible that the Bible seems (and, arguably, is) anthropocentric merely because it is God’s revelation to and for humans? Is it possible that God relates with each creature in its own way—each according to its kind, and such that even the rocks can cry out to Him? Is it possible that God chose to be incarnated within a human being arbitrarily, and that he could have chosen to come to earth in another creature? Is it possible that the imago Dei is in every creation—perhaps a different aspect of the overall image, but an image all the same?

The comings and goings of the Son of Man

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I recently had an article published in the journal Biblical Interpretation, on an idea I’ve been working and re-working for a long time, which attempts to make sense of the very difficult Son of Man material in Matthew’s Gospel concerning the theme of ‘second coming’. This paper was a long time in the coming, and so I was particularly pleased when it finally made it into print. It seemed to me that Matthew doesn’t so much portray a second coming of Jesus in the indefinite future, so much as a motif of perpetual presence in the present. Not only did this make sense of some of Matthew’s more difficult apparent contradictions, it also exploited something the great G. B. Caird once wrote (all too briefly) about how the coming of Jesus is also a going. I called this paper ‘The comings and goings of the Son of Man’, a title I was rather proud of.

The full reference is this – ‘The Comings and Goings of the Son of Man: Is Matthew’s risen Jesus “present” or “absent”? A Narrative-Critical Response’ Biblical Interpretation 22:51-70 (2014), and I’ve included the first few paragraphs here. You can also see the full article on my Academia page (https://edinburgh.academia.edu/MarkHarris).

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Take me to your Messiah – Science, Religion, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (David Wilkinson)

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A review of David WIlkinson’s excellent new book from OUP – David Wilkinson, Science, Religion, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, (Oxford University Press, 2013), £25, pp 1 – 227, ISBN:978-0-19-968020-7

Until the 1920s, only one galaxy was known of, our own Milky Way. Nowadays, it is commonplace in cosmological research to affirm not only the existence of countless galaxies, but also countless universes. In parallel with this vast expansion of our cosmic horizons has come the realisation that there are countless other planets beyond those in our own solar system, many of which could be potentially life-bearing. Just a few weeks before writing (4th November 2013) another 833 new planets were added to the list by astronomers working with the Kepler Space Telescope, and ten of those planets could be suitable for life. As the scientific work continues apace, theological questions – some old and some new – are raised with increasing rapidity. If life is discovered on another planet, especially if it is intelligent life, what will be the impact on our world religions, and especially on Christianity, which relies on the unique incarnation of Christ. Continue reading →

Is the resurrection probable? Let me check my math.

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Many of us in the Science and Religion program have recently been examining miracles in our course on science and scripture, and today we took on the resurrection of Jesus. As you might imagine, this is a formidable topic, and one can come at it from all kinds of directions. One of the more inventive approaches we discussed comes from philosopher of religion Richard Swinburne in his book The Resurrection of God Incarnate. Swinburne begins with the hypothesis that Jesus was God incarnate and that he was resurrected, and he attempts to convince his readers using Bayesian reasoning that the likelihood of this hypothesis being true is overwhelmingly high. In fact, he comes up with a specific number: according to Swinburne’s analysis, there is a 97% probability that his hypothesis is true.

How on earth does Swinburne justify such a calculation? I’ll spare you the gory details and refer you to Wikipedia for more on Bayes’ Theorem. Suffice it to say that everything comes down to our confidence about a handful of scenarios. For instance, given the evidence of natural theology, how confident are we that a “traditional” God exists? Assuming God exists, what is the likelihood that God would become incarnate? How probable is it that the specific circumstances of Jesus’ life would come to pass if he was in fact God incarnate? Swinburne chooses values for the probability of each scenario in rather arbitrary fashion, applies the theorem, and voilà – mathematical proof that belief in the incarnation and resurrection is highly rational.

On the other hand, philosopher Larry Shapiro has a recent piece on miracles in which he wields probability to more skeptical ends. Instead of attempting to assign probabilities to theological claims surrounding the resurrection, he focuses on the reliability of human witnesses, the most direct evidence available to us. His result:

The base rate for the resurrection is (let’s say) one in 1 billion. The witnesses go wrong only one time in 100,000. One billion divided by 100,000 is 10,000. So, even granting the existence of extraordinary witnesses, the chance that they were right about the resurrection is only one in 10,000; hardly the basis for a justified belief.

Why do two approaches that use such similar methods yield such different results? I think the answer becomes clear when we examine the type of event that each author emphasizes. Swinburne attempts to quantify theological propositions that have deep implications for the nature of reality, while Shapiro turns his attention to measurable human behavior – a far more appropriate domain in which to apply statistical methods. Even as a believer, I think Shapiro’s skepticism rings more true. My natural instinct is to be suspicious of any model that claims to mathematically prove a theological proposition beyond all reasonable doubt; such a model trivializes faith. It seems fitting to me that a numerical analysis of the resurrection should yield a low probability because that result confirms my instinct.

What do you think? Are either of these approaches convincing? Can we plausibly estimate the numbers we need for this calculation? And of course, the question that’s been in the back of your mind this whole time: is there any theological value in applying mathematical methods to the resurrection, or are we wasting our time?

New book on the Bible and science

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1844657256My new book has appeared – The Nature of Creation: Examining the Bible and Science. Although there have been many attempts in modern times to compare and contrast the Bible’s stories of creation with ideas from science, this has almost invariably been carried out in a non-critical way. It’s assumed that the text can be read at face value with scant regard for its historical genesis, almost as though it were a scientific report of the world’s origins. And it’s by no means just young-earth creationists who are guilty of this approach, but many who write on the Bible, especially from an interest in modern science.

What my book tries to do is to build bridges between critical biblical scholarship – which has developed far more sophisticated and historically-sensitive ways of reading the text – and modern science, using theology as the go-between. Remarkably, this has never been done before, or at least not across the whole Bible. This is significant, because there’s far more creation material in the Bible than just Genesis. In this way, I try to argue that there is scope for a whole new way of reading the Bible and science together.

Click here to see the book on the publisher’s web page (Acumen). Amazon uk is also selling the book at a very good price.

If you’re signed up to Academia.edu, you can also see my page, where you can download the Introduction.

Luke’s ascension

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In celebration of Ascension Day, one of my personal favourites in the Christian calendar, here is an excerpt from a wider piece I’ve been working on, exploring the challenges from science (“Science, Scripture, and the hermeneutics of Ascension”).

In the hermeneutical exercise that we are proposing, the imagery employed is of central importance. The scriptural witnesses to the ascension of Jesus invariably couch it in spatial terms, most obviously in Luke-Acts (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:6-11), where Jesus is ‘carried up’ into heaven on a cloud. The other synoptic Gospels do not describe the ascension (except in one of the alternative endings to Mark – 16:19), and it is a moot point whether they even know of the idea as such; on the other hand, their talk of the Son of Man coming again on the clouds (e.g. Mark 13:26) is compatible with the idea that this is how he went in the first place. The idea of ascension is represented in various other places in the New Testament through talk of the final ‘leaving’, or ‘going up’ of the earthly Jesus after the resurrection (e.g. John 20:17; 1 Tim.3:16), or of his heavenly exaltation, where Jesus sits at God’s right hand (e.g. Rom.8:35; Eph.1:20; Heb.1:3; cf. Ps.110:1). Continue reading →

Easter reflection

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To me, the most effective thing written about the Christian festival of Easter is this – Easter – by George Herbert in 1633. I am no poet, but I offer this reflection instead, originally written for the Diocese of Edinburgh magazine. There isn’t much Science-and-Religion in it; nevertheless, in that it concerns faith and doubt, it raises two of the key factors in the Christian response to science.

People sometimes tell me they find Easter especially difficult: their doubts prevent them from entering into the spirit of the festival. I have often found comfort myself in a piece of wisdom passed on to me: “Do not regret your doubts; they are a gift to you from God”. And I often add the simple observation that questions are good, because if Christianity is true it has nothing to fear from honest questions, and everything to gain.

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Jesus the Higgs boson

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I am often asked what the ‘God particle’ (i.e. the Higgs boson) has to do with God. A few months ago I wrote an article for the Diocese of Edinburgh magazine, The Edge, attempting to give a novel angle on that question, specifically within the context of a Christian confessional response. Since people have been e-mailing me from far and wide ever since, asking for a copy, I thought I’d post it on our new blog. Here it is…

‘Why is it called the God particle?’ people often ask me. The Higgs boson was predicted nearly 50 years ago by, among others, our own Peter Higgs of the University of Edinburgh, but has leapt to the fore recently because it appears to have been discovered experimentally. This is big news in science, since the Standard Model of particle physics pretty much stands or falls on whether it exists or not, and the Standard Model is the best scientific explanation we have at the moment for why there are particles – things rather than nothing. Now there are many different particles – some of them have mass (you can weigh them) and some don’t. And this is why the Higgs boson is so important: it confers that most basic of physical properties – mass – to other particles. That, and the fact it’s been so difficult to discover, is the reason it’s earned itself the name of ‘the God particle’. It’s a moot point what it might tell us about God though.

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