A Summary of Robert C. Newman’s

“Evangelicals and Crackpot Science”

Evangelical Theological Society Papers, 1994. Micropublished by Portland, OR:

Theological Research Exchange Network, (microfiche).

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

• Newman cites several examples of pseudoscience

• We won’t discuss all of them today

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

• Flat Earth• It will probably come as a shock to

most Christians that there were evangelicals who believed the earth was flat as recently as the end of the last century.

• Much more recent is Charles Johnson in 1978.

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

• Geocentrism• Geocentrists agree in believing

that the earth is the center of things and that the sun goes around the earth rather than the earth around the sun.

• They differ among themselves on whether or not the earth is completely stationary, or rotates once a day on its own axis.

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

• Small Universe• Many Christians believe the earth is only a

few thousand years old. But if so, most astronomical objects we can see with a good telescope appear to be so far away that light from them would not have reached us yet.

• One solution to this problem has been proposed by Harold Camping of Family Radio. He claims that the whole universe is actually only a few light years across, so that light from distant objects reached earth shortly after creation.

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

• Changing Speed of Light• Barry Setterfield admits the universe is

very large but claims that the speed of light right after creation was enormously higher than it is now, so that light from distant objects reached earth soon after creation.

• He and Norman argue that measurements made in the past few centuries for the speed of light show that it has been decreasing, though it has not changed much recently.

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

• Ice Canopy• Many Christians believe that much

of Noah’s flood came from a vast water-canopy above the earth.

• Most hold that the canopy consisted of water vapor, in order to explain how it remained suspended.

• But a number have proposed it was an ice canopy.

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

• Astronomical Confirmation of Joshua’s Long Day

• Claims that the lengthened day has been confirmed by astronomical observations appear to be hoaxes.

• Harold Hill’s How to Live Like a King’s Kid (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1974) contained one.

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

Hill’s story—reprinted in newspapers throughout the US in the 1970s—is that computers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, detected a missing day in past time, and that 23 hours and 20 minutes of it were found at Joshua’s time, and the other 40 minutes when the sun went backward 10 degrees in Isaiah’s day.

• NASA denies any such discovery. Who is right?

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

• Gospel in the Stars • Gospel in Chinese [Language]

Characters• Numerology

And there are others, too:• The Bible Code

Newman suggests

• There are principles which can help protect us against falling for crackpot science just as good hermeneutical principles protect us from crackpot exegesis.

Newman suggests

(1) We should be fair. We should judge ideas we like by the same standard we judge ideas we don’t like (Mt 7:1-5).

(2) We should know what can be said against our pet ideas as well as what can be said for them (Prov 18:17).

Newman suggests

(3) We should seek out people (especially Christians) with special training in areas particularly relevant to the idea we are examining (Prov 12:15).

(4) We should see what sort of cause is being proposed for the phenomenon being advocated and what evidence we have that the cause is adequate to produce the effect (Amos 3:3-6).

Newman suggests

(5) We should ask what sorts of evidence support this claim. Do we have the testimony of multiple, independent, reliable witnesses? (Deut 17:6; 19:15).

(6) Does it seem that any data is being ignored or explained away? (Rom 1:18-20).

Newman suggests

(7) We should use caution in adopting a new idea that is not widely accepted (Prov 29:20)

(8) We should be careful that our attitude is one of humility and a sincere desire for truth, rather than seeking recognition, vengeance or such (Prov 21:2-3; Mic 6:8; John 5:44)

Newman concludes

• Evangelical Christians are by no means the only people afflicted by crackpot science. A visit to any well-stocked secular bookstore will turn up hundreds of titles promoting such ideas.

Newman’s “Crackpot Science”

• In this presentation, I have not provided the evidence of the falsity of each position, I have just presented examples…

• If you want the reasons why each of these is false, read Newman’s essay.

How do you test truth claims?

• Coherence Theory• Pragmatic Theory• Performative Theory• Correspondence Theory

• If you don’t recall these, re-read some of your “Introduction to Philosopy” notes

Consider St. Augustine

• What follows is a long quote from: Quasten and others, eds. St. Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Vol. I, Books 1-6, translated and annotated by John Hammond Taylor, S.J. Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, No. 41, Newman Press, 1982, pp.42-43.

St Augustine• Usually, even a non-Christian knows

something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

St Augustine

• Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

St Augustine

• The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.

St Augustine• If they find a Christian mistaken in a

field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

St Augustine

• Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books.

St Augustine• For then, to defend their utterly

foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. (Italics in original)

How do we know that in the beginning God

created?

Hebrews 11:3

• “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” (NIV)

• We understand “God created” by faith