Infant Baptism

Thank you Relative's Father for your question about infant Baptism. Because it is a big question I have moved it to a separate post, but if anyone is interested in the topic of Baptism see my original post on Baptism of December 27^th. I again believe the Lutheran position on infant Baptism is the best position. I also support the Lutheran position on Infant Baptism for three reasons: It best accomplishes Jesus' Command in the Great Commission, it ties in well with the Old Testament use of Circumcision, and infant baptism is best supported by NT Scriptures, especially as shown in the Book of Acts. Let's Go!:

 

1). Jesus' Great Commission. In Matthew 28:19 Jesus commanded His Disciples to Go and make other Disciples and baptizing them in the name of the Triune God. And so, Christians have traditionally followed this instruction by having their children both instructed in God's Word and baptized as infants to comply with Jesus' Command.

The problem that is dealt with by infant Baptism is original sin. The Scriptures are clear that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without faith in Jesus Christ. And sprinkled through the Bible are examples of parents' faith acting on behalf of their children. See as examples, Genesis 9:9 and 17:10. And so, baptism may best be understood as the parents' faith in Jesus Christ being accounted to their young children until they reach an age of accountability. The Baptism is at least partly for the washing away of a person's sin (see Acts 22:16 and Titus 3:5).

 

2). Circumcision. There is a connection between the OT covenantal use of Circumcision of infants 8 days after they are born and the NT Church's use of Baptism. I do not know enough about this to write anything more, other than to make sure that it is raised.

 

3). Infant Baptism in the Book of Acts. But this is where the topic gets real fun to look at. There are a total of nine (9) baptisms of new converts described in the Book of Acts as a response to hearing the Gospel. In at least three (3) of these Baptisms described in Acts, the entire household of the New Christian is baptized along with them. Here is an example of this type of Household Baptism in the story of Lydia:

 

Acts 16:14-15 - One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. ¹⁵ And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us.

Here are the three main examples of families being baptized along with a New Christian:

Acts 16:15    Lydia of Thyatira, above;

Acts 16:33    Philippian Jailer;

Acts 18:8    Crispus, and as long as we are discussing family Baptisms, take a look at:

1 Cor. 1:16    Stephanus.

And so, infant Baptism started in the Church of Christ because of these descriptions of "household" baptisms shown in the Book of Acts.

And finally, let me add what Martin Luther said about infant Baptisms:

We do the same in infant Baptism. We bring the child with the purpose and hope that he may believe, and we pray God to grant him faith. But we do not baptize him on that account, but solely on the command of God…

Finally, we must know what Baptism signifies and why God ordained just this sign and external observance for the sacrament by which we are first received into the Christian church…These two parts, being dipped under the water and emerging from it, indicate the power and effect of Baptism, which is simply the slaying of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new man, both of which actions must continue in us our whole life long. Thus Christian life is nothing else than a daily Baptism, once begun and ever continued… (Luther's Large Catechism, Baptism, pp. 88-89).

 

So here is my quick summary on why infant Baptism makes sense and is properly a Biblical Sacrament. Baptism signifies the washing away of sins, it is Commanded by Jesus in His Great Commission and so should be obeyed by all Christians, and the early Church started the practice of baptizing those too young to have a saving faith as shown by the "household" baptisms performed in the Book of Acts. But most importantly, all Christians should be undergoing as Luther described a "daily Baptism", where we put to death our old Adam sinful nature with the resurrection of the new person we are in Christ.

I hope this helps - /s/Tom.

Baptism

Lutheran View of Baptism: In Holy Baptism the Triune God delivers us from the forces of evil, puts our sinful self to death, gives us new birth, adopts us as children, and makes us members of the body of Christ, the Church. Holy Baptism is received by faith alone.

 

I have a family member who is now looking for a ministry position that may set the future direction of his ministry for years to come. I am blogging today about an issue in which I believe we disagree – namely, baptism. I support the Lutheran position, and believe it is the best supported biblical position on baptism. While I believe this family member believes baptism to be mostly a symbolic act of the inner transformation and work of the Holy Spirit. And so, I write today to explain the Lutheran position and its Biblical foundations, in hopes of encouraging this family member to consider ministry in the Lutheran Church, the Church of his father and grand-father.

 

1). Luther's View on Baptism. I am going to look at three reasons for my belief that the Lutheran position on Baptism is the best of the competing views. First, a quick explanation of the importance of Baptism to Lutherans. In Luther's Large Catechism, he explain that it is one of two sacraments (the other being the Lord's Supper/Communion) that are both instituted by Christ. The foundation for the Church using Baptism is from Jesus' Great Commission – "Go into all the world and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Matt. 28:19). And so, Jesus commands His followers to preach the Gospel along with the Baptism of all nations. Salvation and baptism are closely tied together in several New Testament verses. See as an example, Mark 16:16, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." See also, 1 Peter 3:21 - Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I will discuss the relevant Baptism verses later in Section 3.

 

Here is Martin Luther's response to those who hold to salvation by faith alone: Our know-it-alls, the new spirits, assert that faith alone saves. And that works and external things contribute nothing to this end. We answer: it is true, nothing that is in us does it by faith, as we shall hear later one. But these leaders of the blind are unwilling to see that faith must have something to believe – something to which it may cling and upon which it may stand. Thus faith clings to the water and believes it to be Baptism in which there is sheer salvation and life, not through the water, as we have sufficiently stated, but through its incorporation with God's Word and ordinance and the joining of his name to it. When I believe this, what else is it but believing in God as the one who implanted his Word in this external ordinance and offered it to us so that we may grasp the treasure it contains.

Therefore, Martin Luther answers those who hold to the salvation by "faith alone" position by showing that faith includes trusting that Baptism as taught in the Bible by Jesus and the Apostles is part of God's plan of salvation.

 

2). Baptism in the Early Church. In both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, we see that when a person responds to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he also receives baptism. Here is how the Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology describes it: "In nine instances Luke represents baptism as the expected response to hearing and receiving the gospel. In four of these, kinsmen, close friends, or a household hear and respond; at Luke 16:14–15 and 18:8 it is not stated that the household believed."

 

All of the early conversions described in the Gospels and Acts were based upon two foundations: faith in Jesus Christ, and Baptism. Here are a few examples:

 

• 3,000 were baptized on Pentecost (Acts 2:41);
  
• Paul immediately upon regaining his sight went and was baptized (Acts 9:18);
  
• Philip and the conversion of the Ethiopian (Acts 8:38);
  
• Peter and the Gentiles (Acts 10:44-48);
  
• Paul and Silas baptize the jailer and his entire household (Acts 16:32-34).
  

And so, the Biblical record is very clear that faith and baptism go hand-in-hand, resulting in salvation.

 

3). Bible Verses on Baptism. So why is Baptism so important? Baptism was first introduced in the Gospels through John's Baptism – a Baptism of Repentance. And so, Baptism and Repentance go together, and may even be synonymous. And so, just as most Evangelical Christians believe that Repentance is necessary for receiving salvation, likewise is the understanding that Baptism is also necessary. Here are several verses that stress the crucial nature of Repentance and Baptism in one's Salvation.

Matt. 28:19 (Great Commission, above); Mark 16:16 (he who believes and is baptized will be saved…); Acts 2:38 (And Peter said to them "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."):

 

1 Peter 3:21 - Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ..

 

Repentance - Acts 2:38, above (lots more); 2 Cor. 7:10; Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

See also, Acts 20:21: testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. (faith and Repentance going together); Salvation means death to and freedom from sin (Romans 6);

 

But let's be fair, there is one example where someone believed in Jesus and was not baptized, but yet was still saved. This is from the story of the thief on the Cross –Luke 23:39-43, where Jesus promised the faithful Thief on a cross that "today you will be with me in Paradise." The Thief likely was not previously baptized, and so this appears to be an example of salvation without baptism. But given the number of verses that support salvation by Faith with Baptism, I think the better reading of this story is that God is big enough to provide salvation even where baptism is not possible – the proverbial deathbed conversion. Therefore, I do not accept that the story of the Thief on the Cross stands for the proposition that Christ-followers do not need to be baptized, or that it is only a symbolic act of the inner transformation. Instead, given the large number of verses supporting Baptism, along with Jesus' own Command in the Great Commission, I think the Lutheran position that accepts Baptism as a sacrament, and that it is a real act of faith in a believer's life is the best position among the various views of Christians.

 

Of course, I have only scratched the surface on this topic, but I did want to hit some highlights. I hope that this post was helpful to you. God bless you in using your gifts and talents in serving the Body of Christ as you end the year.

Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas to you, and happy holidays from my family to yours this wonderful winter day in Minnesota. Here is a message I have for you:

 

If you are a sinner, I have Good News! You already understand your sinfulness before your righteous God and Creator, and that you have nothing that you can offer in exchange for seeking His forgiveness. God has seen the world's most pressing problem – the sinfulness of man. And He did something about it. He sent His one and only Son, Jesus the Messiah to pay the price for the world's sins. He alone is Savior of man's sinfulness (Acts 4:12). What does it mean that Jesus is our "Savior"? There are three things Jesus saves us from by His death on the Cross:

 

1. He saved you from God's anger caused by your sins. God will not punish or condemn you if you have made Jesus your Savior, and trust that He fully paid the price for any sin or pain in your life; God does not punish the same sin twice – and He has punished our sins through Jesus' death on the Cross;
   
2. Jesus saved you from death. By Jesus' resurrection, Jesus has overcome the grave. Because He was resurrected, we also have this promise of one day being resurrected and spending our remaining days with God in heaven (1 Corinthians 15:50-53);
   
3. Jesus saved you from being trapped in sin. Jesus has freed His followers not only from the consequences of sin, but also the hold of sin. Sin no longer has the attractiveness it once did for those who have made Jesus their Savior.
   

 

And so, if you trust that God sent Jesus to pay the price for your sins on the Cross, and repent from living your life without God (Acts 3:19), His promise is that you are forgiven and that you will now have a relationship with God, the Creator of the universe. Is this a cool idea or what! This is amazingly Good News for those who will accept it.

 

But for the other 99% of you, there is Bad News. If you consider yourself as not being a sinner, I am sorry to tell you that there is bad news. There cannot be Good News, without there also being bad news. You are ensnared in a sin called self-righteousness which causes you to be blind to the things of God. If you think that you do not sin, this means that you do not understand your place in the universe. You do not understand that before a holy God, you are judged and condemned. And this means that God's anger and wrath remain upon you, because you have rejected Jesus. God's anger is upon those who sin (Psalm 5:4-6). You see, only those who understand their sinfulness can be saved by Jesus, and if you think you have no sin, Jesus cannot save you . As God's Word describes this, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." (John 3:36). What does it mean that by rejecting Jesus "God's wrath" remains upon a person? It means that if this state continues until the day you die, and who of us is guaranteed to live 10 years from now, let alone until tomorrow, then you will die in your sins. And so, God's anger and wrath at how you have harmed yourself with sin, as well as your actions against others that you have hurt, by the self-centered life you have lived without God in it, must be accounted for because God is a God of Justice. And this will result with the unrepentant life ending in a place described as "hell", eternally separated from God. Hell is a place where perfect justice is meted out, and who of us can say that we do not deserve some amount of punishment for the lives that we have lived while on earth? This is the Bad News of a life without Christ – God's wrath rests upon you, and will rest upon you for eternity.

 

That is why I am writing to you today – please turn from living a life without God in it. It is the most important decision you will make in this life. God bless you. /s/Tom.

Odds n’ Ends (12)

1. Hamas Declares End of Ceasefire with Israel. GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas Islamists Thursday declared the end of a six-month-old Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip, raising the prospect of an escalation in cross-border fighting. This is done likely because they've managed to stockpile enough weapons and ammunition to feel brave again.
   

 

1. President Elect Obama Planning a Billion Dollar Bailout of the Abortion Industry. http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=356962; Last week, the Obama-Biden Transition Project posted a report on its website that calls for dramatic policy reversals on abortion, including $1 billion in taxpayer money for international abortion groups like Planned Parenthood. The report, titled "Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration," also calls for a 133-percent increase in funding for the Title X program, which funds Planned Parenthood clinics across the country.
   

   
    

   
    

2. Climate Change Chicanery. Stubborn thing, truth. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "You can resent it, ignore it, deride or distort it—but there it is." Truth, as Al Gore eagerly lectures, is an inconvenience to people content with their cherished beliefs. Interesting how some of the most inconvenient truths are those that keep cropping up about global warming. For example:
   

• NASA's latest tabulation shows a general cooling trend over the last decade with only three years in that time frame among the 10 hottest years on record.
  
• NASA measurements indicate that the world's oceans—believed to contribute up to 90 percent to global temperature—have been cooling, not warming, for the last five years.
  
• Antarctic ice has been growing steadily since the late 1970s and, in 2008, the extent of Arctic ice increased over 9 percent from the previous year.
  
• According to NOAA scientists, the winter of 2008 was the coldest since 2001.
  

  
   

One way to turn unwelcome findings into corroborative facts is to run them through the spin cycle of computer modeling—like the German scientists who recently announced their new climate-change model. After running the latest data through the model, the researchers found that—voila!—it predicts a 10-year cooling period before temperatures resume their sizzling climb to global meltdown. Now even cooling trends are claimed to support global warming! That's one way to protect a "cherished belief." http://salvomag.typepad.com/blog/2008/12/climate-change-chicanery.html; I hope this answers Mr. Oleander's recent question to me on whether I am now accepting Global Warming – I say hah, to Gorewinism!

 

 

1. More People Believe in Hell Than in Darwinism. "Overall, more people believe in the devil, hell and angels than believe in Darwin´s theory of evolution," said a Harris Poll released Thursday. The numbers clearly favor the proverbial Big Man Upstairs: 80 percent say they believe in God; among those who attend church weekly, the number is 98 percent. Three-quarters believe in miracles, 73 percent believe in heaven, 71 percent say Jesus is the Son of God and 71 percent believe in angels, the survey found. Seven out of 10 say Jesus Christ rose from the dead and that the Bible is, all or in part, the "Word of God."
   

   More than two-thirds - 68 percent - believe in the "survival of the soul after death" and would describe themselves as religious. About 62 percent think that hell exists, 61 percent believe in the Virgin Birth and 59 percent say the devil exists. In contrast, fewer than half - 47 percent - said they believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/12/beliefs-in-god-ufos-prevail/;
   

Daily Devotions

G'Day everyone,

 

I hope all of you are doing well, and finding light and hope during this Christmas season. I wanted to write today about taking in the 'Bread' of God, also called God's Word. I hope that everyone who visits my blog has a good way to daily take in God's Word. Of course, the best way to do this is to be in a formal Bible study with other believers, with Applications and illustrations to help you grow as a Christian. But if you are like me, there are some days when there are only a few minutes, and this is where a good Devotional can be invaluable. There are some very popular Devotionals like Oswald Chambers' 'My Utmost for His Highest', Thomas Kempis' 'Imitation of Christ', or Spurgeon's 'Morning and Evening'. But my favorite was a gift from my Father, Martin Luther's 'Faith Alone'. Luther is so wonderful at providing depth of thought packed into a few paragraphs, which makes him a valuable part of my daily Bible reading.

 

Let me give a quick example of a couple of days of Martin Luther's Devotional style in 'Faith Alone'. Here are two days entries from this past week:

 

December 10 – EVERYDAY MIRACLES.

    Psalm 111:2 – The Lord's deeds are spectacular. They should be studied by all who enjoy them.

    Luther: What the Lord does is spectacular. But in this passage, the psalmist points out that only a few devout people who notice what God has done. Most people don't praise God or thank him. They never say "The Lord's deeds are spectacular." Though they are completely surrounded by his gifts, they have gotten used to them. They take advantage of what God has given them, rooting around in God's gifts like a hog in a bag of feed. They say "what's so special about the fact that the sun shines, fire gives warmth, the ocean provides fish, the earth yields grain, cows have calves, women give birth to children, and hens lay eggs? These things happen every day!"

    Is something insignificant just because it happens every day? If the sun wouldn't shine for ten days, suddenly it would be a great thing when it began shining again. If fire only existed in one place on the earth, I think it would be more precious than gold or silver. If there were only one well in the world, I would imagine that a drop of water would be worth more than a thousand dollars.

    God showers people with rich and wonderful blessings. But how ungrateful and blind people are! They don't recognize these blessings as amazing miracles from God, so they don't admire them, give thanks for them, or act happy about them. However, if a clown can walk on a tightrope or train monkeys, people are ready to admire and praise him for it. The psalmist points out that the Lord's deeds are spectacular, but these deeds are appreciated in the eyes of God's faithful followers.

 

Tom's note – ok, did you like that one? It made me thing of the blessing of Meggan giving birth to baby Noah, and what a "spectacular" event that really is. With Peggy and I having gone through many miscarriages, the miracle of a child being born is very much appreciated by me. But Martin Luther does a great job of helping us to see that there is so much more around us that can also be described as "spectacular". Give praise to our "spectacular" God! Here is the second Devotion:

 

December 12 – THE WORD IS GOD

John 1:1-3 – In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was already with God in the beginning. Everything came into existence through him.

    Luther: John wrote about the majesty and divine nature of our dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in a profound way. John said that Christ, in his divine essence, is the Word of the eternal Father. If the Word existed from the beginning before anything was created, then it must follow that this Word is God. We can easily draw this conclusion: Whatever had its existence before the creation of the world must be God because only the Creator can exist separate from creation. Everything that exists is either Creator or creation – either God or creature. Through John, the Holy Spirit stated that "In the beginning the Word already existed" and "Everything came into existence through him". For this reason, we can never think of the Word as something created. The Word is eternal. No one can deny or disprove the conclusion that this Word is God.

    This passage establishes that Christ is God. On the basis of this fact, we believe and know with certainty that Mary gave birth to our Lord and Savior and that he is true and natural God, born in eternity by the Father. This is why he can't be considered an angel. Instead, he is the Lord and Creator of angels and of all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible" (Colossians 1:16).

    Now, we know that Holy Scripture is God's Word and will last forever (1 Peter 1:25). Scripture clearly states that the Word existed in the beginning before anything was created and that the Word made everything. So, it follows that believers can't hold any other opinion or come to any other conclusion. The Word was not created or made, but already existed from eternity. (Martin Luther, 'Faith Alone' (World Bible Publishers, Inc.))

 

Tom's note – Martin Luther was obviously trained as a lawyer. I know this because as he shows in this passage with his crystal clear use of logic. My final application is that everyone should have a Devotional that challenges them, makes them think, and makes us love our God and His Word all the more. So go out and get a good Devotional and take in His Word.

Amillennial End-times Chart

Two things I’m talking about today. First, a cool Amillennial end-times chart from the Riddleblog (http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/the-latest-post/2008/12/2/cool-an-amillennial-eschatology-chart.html). If you have previously seen an end-times chart of the events involved with the Last Days, it almost certainly came from the Pre-Trib viewpoint. It’s nice to see the Amillennialists are fighting back:

Let’s see if I can shed some light on what the chart is trying to show. So the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of all mankind, and the renewal of the entire cosmos will all occur at one single point in time - This is the time of Jesus' return, which is the day of the Lord The arrows show how the various Scripture passages connect all these "end-times" events as happening at one-time - at the second coming of Christ. The beauty of using this end-times view is that it fits together all of these descriptions so simply, and cleanly – all of these events happen on the Day of the Lord, the Day of our Lord’s return! And no separation of any of these events by 7 days, 7 years, or even 1,000 years is needed. I hope you find this helpful in having a better understanding of the Amillennial view.

2) And on a completely unrelated topic, here is a story that should make you SMILE! WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Happiness is contagious, researchers reported on Thursday.

The same team that demonstrated obesity and smoking spread in networks has shown that the more happy people you know, the more likely you are yourself to be happy. And getting connected to happy people improves a person's own happiness, they reported in the British Medical Journal.

And a cheery next-door neighbor has more effect on your happiness than your spouse's mood. So says a new study that followed a large group of people for 20 years — happiness is more contagious than previously thought. So here’s the easy application: An optimist is the human personification of spring. So let’s be ‘spring’ to those around us this week.

Biblical Literalism and Darwinism’s Evolution

Hi everyone,

 

First, let me ask for the Lord's blessing on the birth of my nephew Bryan and his wife Meggan's second child, that will likely take place today. I'm sorry I haven't written in a while. I have had computer problems, but these are fixed now. And so, I thought I would come back to my blog with a post on the 'light' topic of Biblical literalism and Darwinism/Evolution. (yes, that's my attempt at sarcasm.) I found an interesting article by a Jewish writer David Klinghoffer writing in the Jerusalem Post. His article is an attack against Darwinists who make a false dilemma – there's only the Scientific explanation for life on Earth, or the unscientific Religious view where the universe and everything in it was created in 6 days. I found it an interesting article because it hits on several points that help clarify the issue. And I hope you find it helpful and interesting also.

 

http://www.discovery.org/a/8051;

Most of us find it annoying to be forced into a false dilemma. In a false dilemma, alternatives and gradations of belief are arbitrarily excluded as a technique of manipulation. Accept my version of orthodoxy or you're a heretic!

Jews and Christians employ this argumentative strategy, not least when conversation turns to emotionally charged subjects - like Darwinian evolution. And not least when it is those on Darwin's side who are talking.

But in explaining how life developed, aren't there just two alternatives? That's what we're always told in the media. Either life accumulated complex features through a purely Darwinian process of natural selection, or the universe was created in six literal, 24-hour days, less than six thousand years ago.

Actually, there are gradations between the extremes of Darwinism and creationism. That fact often gets lost…

INEVITABLY, MAIMONIDES is brought forward as an authority. In the Guide for the Perplexed (II:25), he wrote that when a surface-level reading of the Bible is convincingly refuted by science or logic, then "the gates of interpretation remain open."

But Jewish Darwinists often forget to read to the end of that chapter. In Maimonides's day, Aristotelians argued that the universe had no beginning, that it existed eternally. Maimonides responded that he rejected the Aristotelian thesis for two reasons. First, because it "has not been demonstrated." And second, because it made nonsense of Judaism: "If the philosophers would succeed in demonstrating eternity as Aristotle understands it, the Torah as a whole would become void, and a shift to other opinions would take place. I have thus explained to you that everything is bound up with this problem."

Maimonides was not saying that any scientific theory can be reconciled with theistic belief, that our liberty to interpret has no limit, and certainly not when the science itself is wrong or unproven.

Another favorite authority of Jewish Darwinists is the 19th-century German rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. Again, Hirsch is presented simplistically as a supporter of evolution. Jewish Darwinists always forget to mention his explicit comment on "Darwinism" in the context of the idol, Baal Peor, worshipped in the most grotesquely animalistic fashion. To illustrate: "the kind of Darwinism that revels in the conception of man sinking to the level of beast and stripping itself of its divine nobility, learns to consider itself just a 'higher' class of animal" (Numbers 25:3).

ON EVOLUTION, Rabbi Brody is right in perceiving "widespread fear and ignorance." It can be observed in the Christian world as well. When Jews and Christians alike aren't being forced into false dilemmas, we are given alternatives to Darwinian theory that can be imagined as reconciling science and theology only if the whole subject is kept cloudy and confused.

Thus the two most recent popes have appeared to speak of the Church's comfort with "evolution" but without defining the term. Does it mean an unguided process or a guided one? One that gives scientific evidence of a Designer's purpose, or not?

The ambiguity and hedging probably comes from a fear of putting their Church on the losing side of a historic controversy, and an unfamiliarity with the scientific details.

Last month, Pope Benedict spoke to a conference on cosmic and biological evolution held by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. His words were beautiful but gaseous, taking no clear position. The invited scientists at the conference included cosmologist Stephen Hawking, whose work denies that the universe had a beginning as Aristotle's did, undercutting basic theistic belief. Scientists who perceive evidence of design in nature were excluded from the conference. No wonder Catholics are confused about what their Church believes.

Thanks to the prevailing murkiness, Catholic doctrine is often identified in the media with "theistic evolution." Theistic evolution is another gradation of belief between creationism and Darwinism, but an unsatisfactory one. It boils down to the proposition that life's history was guided by natural laws that God designed but in such a way as to leave no evidence of that fact.

One problem with theistic evolution is that natural laws are predictable whereas Darwinian evolution, according to its own theorists, is entirely unpredictable. Think of those laws that govern weather patterns or the formation of geological features. Not so with Darwinian evolution, which can take any of countless very different directions. How could such a purposeless process reflect divine purpose?

The question is far from merely academic. If we are the product of design, then the designer sets the moral order in which we operate. If we were cast up on the cosmic shore by a purposeless, unguided natural process, then every person can decide for himself what is right and wrong. Or maybe the idea of right and wrong is itself illusory. Darwin watered the seeds of modern nihilism.

To be sure, secular opinion has contributed mightily to constructing the false dilemma of evolution versus creationism, which well suits anti-religious purposes. What a pity that in religious circles, we are so easily intimidated or overawed by secularism's prestige, automatically surrendering to its deceptive framing of this important debate.

The writer
David Klinghoffer is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle and the author of books including The Lord Will Gather Me In: My Journey to Jewish Orthodoxy and Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History.