A Matter of Evidence

Some time ago, I watched the Evangelical movie A Matter of Faith. I figured at worst, I would get a few laughs. And maybe, just maybe, the movie would present some new argument in the evolution vs. creationism debate that I would have to think about. The laughs I got, even if they weren’t intended. My hopes for a new argument were obviously way too high. What follows is not a review as such, but rather some reflections on and about the movie and its themes. I hope the information on the movie’s website and the trailer will be enough to follow my thinking and the reader won’t have to watch the entire movie. Otherwise, see the Godless Wolf’s review, which goes through most of the plot points if you don’t want to watch the movie.

Sexism: The sexism starts near the beginning of the movie when Stephen tells Rachel not to get married until she’s at least 45. This is presented as a joke, but the underlying thought is the theme of the whole movie. Don’t make decisions for yourself and don’t think (especially about sex). Stephen becomes concerned that Rachel is losing her faith based on flimsy evidence. He is so concerned about Rachel’s “changing views” that instead of talking to her about it, he confronts her biology teacher. The biology teacher, Professor Kaman, then challenges Stephen to a debate. Libby Anne points out a contrast here with the similarly themed movie God's Not Dead: “Does Josh Wheaton’s father even appear in God’s Not Dead? I’m pretty sure that’s a no. Why isn’t Josh’s father getting all concerned about the fact that, oh no, he sent his son to a school with an atheist philosophy professor?! Oh right, Josh has boy parts, so he doesn’t need daddy to rescue him, he can stand up for himself thank you very much” (italics as in original).

When Evan asks Rachel whether she thinks God created the world, she refuses to answer, which Evan takes to mean “no.” He never considers for an instant that Rachel might simply have been pushing back against his bullying. The bullying continues later when Evan guilt trips Rachel into seeing the “error” of her ways by questioning her Christianity based on (you guessed it) zero evidence. In what may be an unintentional window into the producers’ view of proper gender relations, the final scene depicts Rachel walking behind Evan into a park. This is where he reveals that they first met eight years previously when he bullied her out of a fifty cent coin she had found. Evan was a bully then, and is a bully now.

We never get to see how Rachel processes the information she receives in Kaman’s class. She shows discomfort at the new information—that is to be expected. Later, she flat out states she still believes God created the world. That is not good enough for Evan, hence the guilt trip. But I would have liked to know what her thoughts were. Was she trying to reconcile evolution to her religious beliefs? Compartmentalizing them? Outright rejecting evolution or the parts of her religious upbringing that conflict with it? Neither Stephen nor Evan care enough about her to explore what she is thinking—they just assume the “worst.” Given their binary view of the topic, perhaps it was impossible for them to ask these sorts of questions. In one of the many ironies of the film, Professor Kaman accurately describes the subject of the movie: Stephen is “a religious dad who doesn’t like his little girl thinking for herself.” For all the talk about “teaching the controversy” at the end of the film, this is exactly what no one except the “evil evolution teacher” allows her to do.

Rachel's mother, Kimberly, contributes nothing to the story. She has few lines, none of consequence, and mostly serves as set dressing. She could have been eliminated entirely from the movie and no one would have missed her. It seems the only point of having her in the movie at all is to demonstrate how a proper woman should act—in deference to her husband and for God’s sake not doing any thinking.

Unintentional hilarity: Stephen is shocked—shocked!--that a biology course in a secular university only teaches evolution. Where exactly did he have his head buried for the last hundred years?

Evan’s confrontation with “Guy in Library” actually makes Evan look like an idiot to anyone who has any real knowledge of evolution. Yes, Evan, my mother looks like an ape. So does my grandmother, and my great-grandmother. So do I. So do you. This is because we are apes!

Evan’s attempt to make Professor Kaman’s policy of giving a C to everyone who simply shows up to class into an evil plan to “get students to doubt their faith in God and the Bible” is absurd on its face. First, none of Kaman’s students need to take a biology class at all, with the possible exception of biology majors.¹ This means someone who wants to avoid having their faith challenged can easily do so. Though Kaman’s grading policy is apparently well known, Rachel’s class has plenty of empty seats. Kaman is never depicted as mentioning God or the Bible in the classroom. In a fortunate contrast to God’s Not Dead, Kaman does not demand students accept evolution. Many, if not most of Kaman’s students would have already been introduced to evolution in the public school systems they came from. They either would have already dealt with any problems evolution caused for their faith or would already be well on their way to doing so. Kaman’s evil plan is a day late and a dollar short for most of his students.

The circumlocutions used to avoid directly saying Nice Guy^TM Tyler is just trying to get into Rachel’s pants are embarrassing. Any idiot watching the movie knows what's going on, so why not use forthright language that people actually use? It’s not like the producers would have had to use vulgar language. Just say something like, “He’s only interested in you because he wants to have sex with you.” Or “He just wants to get you in bed.”

Unintentional ironies: The only generally likable character in this farce is Professor Kaman, the designated villain. The father is an overbearing meddler. The “good” Christian boy is a manipulative bully. Boys who have a romantic interest in Rachel turn out to be Nice Guys^TM. Rachel herself is an empty object, being acted upon rather than being an actor in her own life; the writers should have given her the more appropriate name Abelia. Professor Portland remains bitter over his completely just firing for twelve years, but judging from his estate, he wasn’t exactly suffering because of it. The only possible marks against Kaman’s character are the way he goaded Stephen into the debate and then singles out Rachel in class when he announces it. But in the first case, as Kaman pointed out, Stephen did visit Kaman to confront him on the issue, and in the second case, it would have likely become known Stephen was Rachel’s father anyway. Kaman is portrayed as amiable, willing to live and let live, jovial, and reasonable; the movie even goes out of its way to show Kaman’s scientific credentials are impeccable. This is a definite improvement over the caricature presented in God’s Not Dead, but ironically it makes the Christian characters come off much worse when they cast aspersions on him.

The movie continually jumbles all kinds of things together with evolution, including abiogenesis and cosmology. But let’s focus on abiogenesis for the moment. Evan at one point says, “Life comes from life. It doesn’t come from non-life.” Yet ironically this is exactly what Genesis portrays. “Let the earth put forth vegetation:” (Genesis 1:12)². “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures” (Genesis 1:20). “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind” (Genesis 1:24). “Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). If that is not life from non-life, I don’t know what is.

The debate that wasn’t: When we finally get to the debate, it simply spirals out of control. Even though the debate was supposed to be “Evolution vs. Creationism,” the debate hit on just about every topic except evolution and creationism. Nevertheless, it is hard to avoid the fact that the only character who offered any evidence for their views was Kaman. It quickly becomes obvious Stephen is incapable of presenting any evidence for his view, while Portland does not intend to offer any evidence and would rather preach. Setting aside Stephen and Portland’s infantile views of what science is, presumably they would agree with Kaman that science is about evidence. And neither Stephen nor Portland offer any. All they have are platitudes and in Portland’s case, outright falsehoods. When Kaman declines to continue the debate after Portland’s speech, this is apparently meant to signal capitulation. In Kaman’s final scene, he looks at his rubber chicken with an enigmatic smile, which is apparently meant to signal he is reconsidering evolution. However, both could just as easily be read as Kaman following the Proverb that one should “not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself” (26:4). After all, under the circumstances, what would have been the point in continuing? Preaching is for churches, not debates.

Stephen and Portland try to paint evolution as a matter of faith. Ironically, however, their unwillingness and/or inability to present any evidence for their position only points to the exact opposite conclusion. The theory of evolution is a matter of evidence. Unlike creationism, no faith is needed when it comes to accepting evolution. Either the evidence supports it, or it does not. What would be a matter of faith is any metaphysical reflections the acceptance of evolutionary theory might spark. And this brings us to--

The excluded middle: The movie tries to paint evolution vs creationism as matter of atheism vs. Christianity. Stephen says in his opening statement, “Not only is the teaching of evolution an attack against those well-known first words of the Bible, ‘In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth,’ but it is an undermining assault against the authority of God, which really becomes the main issue here.” Portland accuses Kaman of accepting Freud’s³ views because “evolution leaves no room for a supernatural Creator” and goes on to make the standard slur-by-implication that atheists just want to do whatever they please. Despite a throwaway line that even “some Christian schools” teach evolution (the horror!), the movie completely ignores vast numbers of Christians, including scientists, who accept evolutionary theory without it diminishing their faith. For just a small list of Christian scientists who accept evolution, see the Godless Wolf’s review, linked above. Presumably the producers would deny these scientists are “real” Christians, but that would only raise the question of what gives them the authority to decide who is a Christian and who is not. Regardless, the point is that accepting evolution does not require one to become an atheist.

Why would they accept evolution? Because of the evidence, of course. As Pope John Paul II said:

“Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of [Humani Generis], some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.”

On “teaching the controversy”: As Dr. Kenneth Miller points out, calls to “teach the controversy” really amount to an attempt to short circuit the scientific method. In real science, it is damned hard to achieve a consensus. In order for a theory to gain a scientific consensus, it must be able to explain the most data, be coherent both internally and externally, provide avenues for further observation and/or experimentation, and do all this over time under the constant criticism of peer review. What “teaching the controversy” does is demand something, say creation science or intelligent design, be taught without going through the process of gaining a consensus in the scientific community. “Teaching the controversy” makes sense in areas where there is still a great deal of scientific debate going on. But when it comes to the broad outlines of evolutionary theory, there is no scientific debate. If intelligent design advocates want to make “teaching the controversy” a viable approach, they need to do the work of making intelligent design a valid scientific approach to biology first.

One must also wonder if we can take the producers at their word that all they want is for schools to “teach the controversy” so people can “decide for themselves.” Remember, the thing that gets the ball rolling in this movie is the fact that Stephen fears Rachel is changing her views, that is, deciding for herself. As Libby Anne also pointed out, it’s not like Stephen didn’t have eighteen years to affect Rachel’s views. Was he “teaching the controversy?” The movie depicts Kaman’s class as Rachel’s first exposure to evolutionary thought, so obviously the answer is no. Both Stephen and Evan’s actions are attempts to bludgeon Rachel into submission and have nothing to do with encouraging her to evaluate differing viewpoints. So it is with “teaching the controversy.” The Christian Right cannot get their religious views force fed to students in public schools, so they use the argument of “teaching the controversy” to make an end run around the First Amendment.

“Teaching the controversy” is subterfuge, and a painfully obvious one at that. Notably, the movie’s own resource page contains links only to creationist sites. Suppose I started demanding schools start teaching a view of Native American origins according to Mormon Scripture.⁴ Failing to achieve that goal, suppose I then demanded that schools “teach the controversy.” Somehow, I seriously doubt those who want to “teach the controversy” when it comes to the origins of life would be very supportive of my demands. In fact, I’m pretty sure there would be a serious uproar on the Christian Right about it. All we need to do is witness how conservative Christians get so fired up when it comes banning Sharia, but have no problems when it comes to imposing so-called biblical law on the country.

Comments are, of course, welcome. Please keep them directed at the movie under discussion. I am not interested in debating evolution vs. creationism as such. Specifically, I will not respond to any attempts to Gish gallop.

1Most universities require all students to take some science classes, but the choice of which ones is usually up to the student.

2All biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.

3As a sidenote, the fact the writer/director has Kaman rely on Freud mostly demonstrates how far behind the times he is when it comes to religious scholarship.

4Obviously this would be very imaginative scenario.

An Approach to the Fall Story in Genesis, Part Two

In Part One, I proposed we should not talk about “what Scripture says” about a given topic by assuming all the authors spoke with a unified voice. Instead, to answer any given question about scriptural teaching, we need to look at what each individual author wrote. Only then can we start suggesting some tentative answers to those questions. In this part, I am going to apply that methodology to answer questions about what Scripture says about the origin of death.

Going back to the beginning means starting with Genesis chapters two and three. For this discussion, I largely draw on David P. Wright's “Sex and Death in the Garden of Eden.”¹ Biblical quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.

When we try to look at Genesis as Genesis, it becomes unclear whether the one of the story's purposes is to describe the origin of death. The text does not clearly say this and could actually be read both ways. Some scholars, including Wright himself at one point, have concluded the story does talk about the origin of death.² Since this is the most common position, we need not dwell on it. Instead, we will look at the evidence that points in the other direction.

The Genesis story, in many respects, is about how humans became differentiated from the animals. Some of the questions it seeks to answer include: Why are humans more intelligent than animals? Why are humans able to act beyond mere instinct? Why do humans use clothing? Possibly, why do humans engage in non-reproductive sexual activity?³

Obviously, the fact of death does not make humans different from animals. Since there is no reason to suspect that animals can't die before the Fall of Adam, there is also no reason to suspect that Adam was not already subject to death. If the story was meant to be about how death in general came into the world, the failure to mention the animals leaves a huge gap in the story.⁴ If the story was intended to only show how humans became mortal, that still leaves us with the implication that animals were already subject to death.

Curiously, this hole remains when we look at other texts about the origin of death. Certainly there are passages that could be construed to say that Adam's transgression brought death on animals as well as humans (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:21). However, those passages are so human-centric that we are not forced into that conclusion.

It is hard to make sense of the threat of Gen. 2:17 without assuming death was already a factor in the Garden of Eden. If death was not already a factor, then Adam would have no conceptual basis on which to fear such a penalty. Instead, the force of the threat lay in stressing premature death (“in the day that you eat of it you shall die,” emphasis added).⁵ This implies that even for Adam, death was natural. Notably, Eve only eats the fruit when the threat of immediate death is removed.

Finally, what can we make of the Tree of Life?⁶ On could argue that so long as they had access to the Tree of Life, the humans could have staved off death—potentially forever. The sequel in Gen. 3:22-24 seems to have this implication. Fearing the humans would eat from the Tree of Life, God expels them from the Garden and places a guard on the tree. Let's explore the implications a little further.

When God gave the humans permission to “freely eat of every tree” except for “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” (Gen.2:16-17), by implication they were permitted to eat of the Tree of Life. One could suppose they were freely eating from it, and that it was keeping them alive until no longer had access to it. However, there are some indications that, even if it was permitted, Adam and Eve did not eat from the Tree of Life.

The whole point of the sequel is to prevent the humans from taking “also from the tree of life” (Gen. 3:22). Though it is by no means conclusive, the passage seems to say that Adam and Eve had not yet eaten from this tree. If so, then the Tree of Life did not account for their alleged immortal state before eating of the Tree of Knowledge. In other words, they were mortal from the beginning.⁷

Moreover, if Genesis chapter three is a story about the origin of death, this would be a strange way of telling it. If the humans' continued immortality depended on eating from the Tree of Life, then that implies they were subject to death without it. To tell a story about the origin of death by implying Adam and Eve were already mortal turns the story into complete nonsense.

Finally, we should consider the parallelism between the Trees of Life and Knowledge. The Tree of Knowledge conferred a once-and-for-all benefit: knowing good and evil. We would expect that the Tree of Life does the same. If this is so, then Adam and Eve would not need to continue eating from the Tree of Life in order to have immortality; once would be enough. This would explain why God was so anxious to prevent the humans from accessing the Tree of Life and further usurp divine prerogatives.⁸

To summarize, the Fall story in Genesis may not be about the origin of death after all. Even when we try to read the story while setting aside later interpretations, we can't fully be sure whether the author meant to tell the story of how death came into the world. With this in mind, we can take a stab at answering some of the questions that were raised in Part One.

To the question of whether there was death in the world before Adam ate the fruit, we can only say we don't know if that is what the author of Genesis meant. As far as Genesis is concerned, a range of answers is possible. The author could have meant there was absolutely no death before the Fall; he could have meant only Adam and Eve weren't subject to death before eating the fruit; he could have merely assumed that death was already present in the garden.

The lack of certainty opens up some options. One could say that if there is any question about what the author of Genesis meant, then Paul and Joseph Smith settle the matter. The answers to the other questions will tend to fall in line.

However, if Genesis is not about the origin of death, then the fact that evolutionary theory requires the presence of death from the beginning is less of a problem. One could then argue that Paul and Joseph Smith were talking about the origin of spiritual death. True, some problems will remain. With regard to Paul, such thinking would likely be anachronistic. However, if one must try reconciling evolution with a somewhat literal reading Scripture (something I do not recommend), that is about the best way of doing it.

If we can't be sure whether the Fall story is talking about the origin of death, it is a moot point whether physical or spiritual death is meant. More than likely, a strict division between “physical” and “spiritual” death is a concept that simply did not exist yet.⁹ So the best answer in our terminology is both. Barring access to the Tree of Life effectively condemned humans to physical death. Expelling them from the garden meant they no longer had direct communion with God. That is pretty close to what we moderns would call spiritual death. Of course, later writers would also wind up saying both (e.g., Hel. 14:16). As long as we are careful not to press this is as the author's intent, it is a valid approach to read the story of the Fall this way.

I have no problems whatsoever in regarding the Tree of Life as symbolic. I would, however, shy away from one-to-one correspondences; the Tree of Life may be symbolic, but it is not allegorical. Symbols often bristle with meaning, no one of which should be considered the “correct” one. In this sense, the meaning of a symbol can go far beyond what its creator meant. This having been said, equating the Tree of Life with the Atonement would probably be very anachronistic if imposed on the author of Genesis.

The question of whether Adam felt guilt over his transgression is not answered by Genesis. As far as we can tell from Genesis, after being expelled from the garden, Adam and Eve simply went on with their lives. This really should not be very surprising. The author is not very interested in exploring the inner thoughts of the characters. He seemed content to allow the readers to read between the lines based on what the characters say and do.

Having explored what Genesis might or might not say about the origin of death, I am going to pause. When I take up the topic again, I will discuss the literature of the so-called intertestamental period and its possible influences on the next major interpreter of the Fall story, Paul.

1 Sunstone, June 1998, 33-39.

2 Wright, “Sex and Death,” 33. See especially notes five and six for arguments that the story of the Fall is about the origin of death.

3 This last question is a bit shakier. It assumes the line “yet your desire shall be for your husband” in Gen. 3:16 is a reference to non-reproductive sex and the author was not aware of any animals that engage in non-reproductive sex.

4 Wright, “Sex and Death” 33-34.

5 In this sense, Abr. 5:13 reduces the immediacy of the death threat by changing “in the day” to “in the time.” While this may indicate Adam was conceived as immortal before eating the fruit. Nevertheless, to say “if you eat the fruit you will die someday” is not much of a threat. Since the Book of Abraham remains unfinished, it is impossible to say what direction the parallel story to Genesis 3 may have gone.

6 The following argument tracks Wright, “Sex and Death,” 35-36, but I'm also elaborating on it.

7 Wright, “Sex and Death,” 36.

8 See also Wright, “Sex and Death,” 35-36.

9 That discussion is beyond the scope of these posts, however. For such a discussion, see Alan E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993).

An Approach to the Fall Story in Genesis, Part One

Over the last week, I have been contributing to Feast Upon the Word, a Wiki commentary on the Standard Works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Typically, each page is divided into four sections: Questions, Lexical notes, Exegesis, and Related Links. If there is something that doesn't quite fit these categories, users can post it on the related discussion page. I am generally trying to answer something in the questions section with my contributions.

The site's users posed some very good questions about Gen.3:21-24. I would like to answer them, or at least suggest possible directions. However, I think my answers would prove too controversial for the site, so I'm going to post them here and hope for the best. Here are the questions:

• Verse 22: Was there death on this earth prior to Adam partaking of the fruit (before answering see Bible Dictionary entry for the fall)?¹
• If there was no death previously, how does this fit into popular views of theological evolution, evolution or other controversial issues? Can current views of science be reconciled with the creation account, or is this simply a matter of faith?
• Is the death referred to in verse 22, a spiritual or physical death? Or both?
• If the account in symbolic, what is the tree? Is it the atonement? A previous atonement (assuming Adam could have come from another Earth)?
• How do we find our way to our own "tree?" Can we partake (of the atonement) and live forever after we overcome our sins?
• Did Adam feel guilt for this transgression (See 2 Nephi 2)? What is the role of guilt?

Note that many of these questions assume that modern Mormon theology can answer these questions as if the author of Genesis had these things in mind. The first question is explicit about it: consult the Bible Dictionary first. The Bible Dictionary, of course, interprets the Fall story in light of later revelation. Assuming all the scriptural writers were speaking with a unified voice and the author of Genesis knew what the later writers knew, then the answer is simple. No, there was no death prior to Adam partaking of the fruit. The answers to the other questions will tend to fall in line. But is the answer really that simple?

I have already noted in another post that I don't assume scriptural writers mean the same thing even when speaking about the same topic using the same words. I also noted that not making this assumption has some staggering implications. At a very minimum, it is hard to talk about what Scripture “teaches” without qualification. To say, “Scripture teaches X,” assumes the various authors spoke with a (more or less) unified voice. That may be true, but we just can't assume it. Thus, when the first question implies its own answer by asking us to consult the Bible Dictionary, my response is, “Hold on, not so fast!” While I don't deny later writers have interpreted this passage to say there was no death before the Fall, that doesn't necessarily mean the author of Genesis intended that meaning.

If we can't properly talk about what Scripture “teaches,” what can we do? We start at the beginning. We try to figure out what each individual author meant, without necessary reference to later interpretations.² If a later writer uses a previous author's writing, we try to figure out how that material is being used, without necessary reference to the original author's intent.³ Should a unified voice emerge when we do this, fine and well. But if a unified voice does not emerge, then we will have do deal with it. I think it is more likely that we will find that we will many recurring themes, but that the individual authors are going to have different takes on those themes.

What if we find that the scriptural writers are not speaking with a unified voice? I don't think this is a cause for concern. After all, the Scriptures as we have them were written by numerous authors over a span of some three thousand years. We should expect differences in outlook and even contradictions. Differences and contradictions only matter when we impose inerrancy on the authors—and Latter-day Saints really should know better. Furthermore, the whole point of the Mormon doctrine of continuing revelation is that God “will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom” (A of F 9). The author of Genesis had to work with the light he had no less than Paul and Joseph Smith did. We need not suppose these writers all had the same knowledge. Instead of trying to impose the framework of modern Mormon doctrine on the authors, let us see what they have to say for themselves. After that, we can start suggesting answers to these questions.

I will begin this process in Part Two by considering the question of whether the author of Genesis intended to describe the origin of death.

1 The reference is to the Appendix “Bible Dictionary” attached to the Bible published by the Church (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1979). The entry “Fall of Adam” is found on p. 670 of the Appendix.

2 This doesn't mean we can't use later interpretations as evidence regarding the original author's intent. When the interpreters are part of the originally intended audience, their readings can be particularly valuable as evidence of original intent. This is especially true when the original author's thoughts are (like most Scripture writers) unknown or lost.

3 For example, when I quote or cite another author's work, I don't necessarily mean to say that author intended the use I make of it. As a Book of Mormon environmentalist, I make free use of some historicist works even though those authors and I have radically different starting points and come to different conclusions regarding the same evidence.