My name is John Bartik. I have just graduated from Bible college and am now working at St Jude’s Randwick. I would consider myself largely ignorant of most things and am simply putting a few ideas out there into the mix. I’m married to Lisa who is awesome and pretty, and we have three kids: A little boy (born on 18.9.06) and fraternal twins (girl born 11:40pm on 5.10.08, boy born 12:06am on 6.10.08). I used to teach ESL at Macquarie University. I really like people, jazz and fishing (although I never go fishing).
By popular request (Lisa), I changed my old ugly photo to this better one. I hope you like it!
this photo is a bit scary… up for a change?
What do you mean? This is what I look like.
you look like a spiny fish….
oh wow.. i just did two dots & a bracket and it turned into a face.. magic..
Lisa just said that she always thought this picture was ‘a bit dumb’.
….
What do you think of the supposed “full-service” relationship Karl Barth had with Charlotte von Kirschbaum…and how do you think he justified having the relationship with her (as a believer)…and how she must’ve justified the relationship with him?
Hi Jane,
I posted my thoughts here
. This post answers your questions. If it is true, which I’m not sure about, I haven’t the foggiest idea about how he could have justified it. I can’t see any way around it for someone who claimed to know and lived so intimately with the Scriptures. The same would go for her.
I could understand a moment of weakness, in which case it would be stupidity. But a prolonged affair…. I don’t think I could take him seriously after that.
I believe that it wasn’t sexual at this point. That’s not to say it was wrong, but I think it wasn’t “full service”. It was an emotional affair; he gave intimacy to von Kirschbaum rather than his wife.
John, thank you so much for responding to my query and for the link to previous posts regarding this topic. I am finding this fascinating and would like to explore the life of Karl Barth further. I would also like to take a look at the Busch book. Perhaps if any of us were faced with having the joy that an incredibly stimulating and fulfilling relationship (outside of an existing marriage) provided, we’d all be tempted to justify maintaining and nourishing it. I question whether this relationship transcended the sexual and met a deep yearning to be known, which is, I suppose, intimacy. In any event, Mrs. Barth must’ve been a very open-minded woman before her time to allow von Kirschbaum to live umder the same roof.
I agree, the delight of an ‘equal’ to interact with on a deep level would have been very difficult to give up.
I agree Mrs B. must have been open minded to allow it in the first place. Either that or Barth might have insisted despite her wishes. The relevant Wikipedia section in “Karl Barth” indicates that it started going rather pear-shaped at some point. The other possibility is that it might have been introduced to Mrs B. as a short-term thing that never really ended…. I hope Busch provides answers!
I’m a bit worried John!
Hi John-why do you think we are presently inundated with academics writing books etc about the non existence of God.What is it about ‘right now’ that is making this so fashionable? Just this weekend I have read 2 articles pertaining to this. The first was about how the brain is comfortable with God in the same way that sweet things are better than sour and the other claims that the brain is not capable of processing whether there is a God or not and so its irrelavent.Any thoughts.
Hi Tony,
Thanks for the question. I’ll be straight up, I’m pretty confident on theology and Christianity but your question appears to be sociological and scientific. I’ll take a stab at it though. Firstly, there has always been a long historical tension between science and religion, so much so that I would say it is one of the longest, most bitterly fought battles in the intellectual arena that there is today. The existence of God is always at the front-line of the debate mainly because if there was a God who created all things and all people, he might have legitimate claims over the manner in which people govern their lives. The God of the Bible, (which I believe is the only God) demands that people live their lives in complete devotion to him as their primary responsibility. Academics have been writing against the existence of God for many years. The famous philosopher David Hume wrote in the 18th concerning the inability to prove God’s existence and his subsequent non-belief in that God. The controversy surrounding him was no less extensive than that which surrounds public atheists today such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and others. So in one way there is nothing new here, and the articles that you are noticing are simply chance and happening that atheist material is entering your sphere of existence.
That said, there has been a recent flood of best selling atheist books that have generated widespread public interest. So much so that there is currently a movement called ‘new atheism’ that is seeking to promote the position ‘without a belief in god’. Care must be taken when examining this position because they do not deny the existence of God outright, they simply say that no reason, logic or evidence has been put forward to prove the existence of God, thus belief in God is unreasonable, illogical and without any basis. The movement has been gaining some traction where I live in Australia, to the point where just last weekend the Atheist Foundation of Australia held a large conference for 2500 people in Melbourne. The big drawcard speaker was Richard Dawkins himself, with many other well-known atheists speaking also. Perhaps publicity surrounding this event and/or this movement has found its way into your world.
Unfortunately the movement is young and thus deeply flawed. (Warning: anti-atheist tirade coming) The primary weakness as I see it is that much effort is spend deriding religion and religious people while failing to offer any alternative to religion. Secondly, many atheists APPEAR profoundly arrogant and by such an appearance contradict fundamental aspects of critical thinking that they seem to lay claim to. On this, many of their arguments against religion require a construal of religious faith that is inconsistent with the experiences of the majority of religious people. Eg all catholics support the actions of the IRA, all muslims support terrorism. Neither of which are true. On the other side, many of the most powerful atheist arguments against religion can be switched into arguments against atheism. I have heard both atheists and Christians argue that the greatest massacres in the 20th century were committed by (people of the opponent’s persuasion). I have been personally ridiculed for following a set of beliefs from the bronze age (true), where my opponent seemed not to have benefitted at all from the advances in philosophy post-Descartes (17th c.). That is to say, new atheism appears stuck in a modernist mindset which disallows belief in God based on lack of reason, logic, evidence, while a post-modern 20th c. mindset allows the legitimacy of religious belief because reason, logic and evidence are all limited and used by fallible humans who may or may not be able to perceive reality perfectly nor articulate it perfectly if they could. My point is not to secure theism is more ‘current’ and atheism less, rather that the accusations leveled at the one can be levelled at the other. Atheists don’t seem to acknowledge this.
As for the studies that you mention. I don’t have a problem with either finding. It is true that the brain is comfortable with belief in God. Atheists and theists will both attest to this; atheists saying that we have evolved this way, theists by saying that God made us this way. It is also true that the mind is unable to conclude absolutely whether there is a God. The brain is only able to process information presented to the body via the senses. If God chooses to remain imperceptible to the senses then there is no way for the brain to evaluate God’s existence. On the other hand, our senses are fallible – can be deceived, can misunderstand information presented to them: this means that if God were to present himself to a human it is impossible to determine whether that one’s senses have been deceived or not. For this reason I would argue that not only is the brain not capable of processing whether there is a God or not, but that it is impossible to determine the certain existence of anything at all. Proving the existence of God is as impossible as proving the existence of the man or woman you see in the mirror, or the chair you are sitting on, or the shirt on your back.
I hope this helps,
John
Hi John – thank you very much for replying to my enquiry. I wll write some more about that but in the meantime here are the links for the articles I mentioned. Thanks again. Tony
http://www.canada.com/mobile/iphone/story.html?id=2682486
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=2677925
Thanks Tony,
Both interesting articles. It reminds me that my previous comment lacked a significant paragraph, that is, one on the benefits that atheism brings to religion. In my discussions with atheists I have been enormously stimulated and challenged to re-examine my Christian faith because of the sheer number of important concerns that the atheists set before religion. Atheists have an extraordinary nose for choosing the controversial elements of Christian faith and their concerns are invariably legitimate. On the negative side, the forcefulness with which some atheists bring their concerns to believers causes damage to their faith and some give up based on the challenges they bring. However it does not have to be that way. I have found that the more openly I embrace atheist arguments, the more I refine and clarify my Christian doctrine. The more I am attacked the better my defences become. From the earliest times (I am only speaking of Christianity here) heresy has functioned to refine and clarify doctrine. Marcion (1st c. AD) helped clarify the doctrine of inspiration, Arius (3rd c.) helped ENORMOUSLY to clarify the doctrine of the Trinity. To bring it back to the point, the atheist movement has the potential to refine religious belief – not in a bad way either. If the dialogue between atheists and Christians (or all religious folk for that matter) were to continue in a congenial manner, both would benefit. Christians would be forced to revisit and refine their foundations more carefully, and atheists would be able to learn and grow from the millennia of accumulated wisdom that religions have achieved.
Likewise both these studies help to articulate the nature of faith. There must be no midpoint to assist faith in God. If science were able to PROVE God’s existence then science would trump God, we would have faith in science as the determiner of truth and science determines God’s existence. Science would then be the governing authority that determines truth. Although science need not contradict faith, faith must never depend on it, because science changes and develops and is subject to interpretation one experiment that ‘proves’ God’s existence may be falsified the next day, another that denies his existence may be undermined the next day. Similarly faith cannot rest on historical foundations, or logic, or anything else. Because faith is a decision in your head as to what you reckon. Of course history, logic and science can provide tangential confirmation of your beliefs, but faith must not be tied to them.
Faith is a commitment, (to use an unflattering word) an opinion, a choice. Yet it is an opinion that affects the direction of your whole life and one that is deeply held.
So these studies are correct. Interestingly, you can replace ‘God’ with ‘love’ in both studies and you will have the same findings. There is no way to prove that ‘love’ exists. Our feelings of love may simply be an evolutionary quirk that encourages better societies. In my opinion there is such thing as love, but I don’t have any way to prove it exists for sure.
John
Thank you very much and thanks for taking the time to read the articles.
I appreciated you advising me to embrace atheist points of view as they would only serve to strengthen my beliefs(fragile as they can be) this is something I had never considered. I can be a bit ostrich like about my belief in God and my dark nights of the soul are, recently, numerous.
I am not a Christian but have been a member of AA for 29 years; God is who I ask every morning to keep me sane. There’s a lot riding on Him
Does the science fraternity ever stand up for God? Are there any scientists who defend the existence of God as the vehemently as the atheists deny Him? I know that Newton and Einstein both believed and they were surely two of the greatest minds ever- is that a reflection of them or the times they lived in? Which brings me back to one of my original questions: why so much of this ‘stuff’ now? I guess you just can’t win- if you tell a scientist you feel the presence of God everywhere he/she will tell you that it is only because the software your running is creating the feeling. But still you feel it.
Anyway I will have to read your replies many times to fully get them. Thank you.Tony
Hi Tony,
No worries. Glad to be of service. Yes, certainly the science fraternity has stood up and delivered devastating attacks on popular atheism. I read a cutting article today that listed several scientists who have each delivered massive critiques upon Dawkins & co.: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/dawkins-preaches-to-the-deluded-against-the-divine/story-e6frg6zo-1225841086925. The only mistake that I found in the article is that Anthony Flew, while surely a recounting atheist, is not a practicing Christian.
I can assure you that there are always answers. Often atheists are perceptive in articulating problems but as I mentioned above they are as coloured as believers when it comes to evidence. Nothing can ever be shown to those who don’t expect to see. (That was a cryptic comment, let me explain it) Evidence ultimately needs to be interpreted and the interpretation is always subjective. I’ll stop talking in hyperbole and point you to a useful article that demonstrates the point I’m making (badly). http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/feb/20/campos-the-atheists-dilemma/
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. The challenge to you that an atheist would legitimately offer would be something like this: if you happened to be bumped on the head and the part of your brain that created the feeling of God’s presence was to suddenly become disconnected would you still think God exists despite not having that feeling any more? If the answer is yes, then you have true faith and this kind of faith is nearly indestructible.
I hope this last thought is a help not a hindrance,
Kind regards,
John
Hey John,
I don’t have any intelligent questions to ask right now but I am curious if you knew you said your son was born a month after your daughter in your profile description. I’m asking since you said they’re fraternal twins. Also, I like your posts from what I’ve read so far.
I do have a comment for Tony however. If you’d like to find out more about how scientists approve of God and the like, you should check out the Acts and Facts magazine. It has some awesome information, including topics such as disproving evolution and Darwinism, the Great Flood, the Big Bang theory, the human body, and others. It is Biblically promoted and what I mean by that is the Bible proves or agrees with what they say. Also, the topics are more scientifically proven than most real world issues and debates presently occurring such as evolution. Hope this helps. You should check this out too, John if you’ve never heard about this before. Let me know what you think.
Nathaniel
Oh and you can go to http://www.icr.org to look at their website.
Nathaniel
Hi Nathaniel,
Yes, I was aware that there are different dates – in fact they were born 26 mins apart. The difference is the way we write dates in our respective countries – I’m in Australia where we write dd/mm/yyyy where you are presumably in America where you write mm/dd/yyyy. Incidentally when Lisa was preparing to give birth to them, a doctor told her of a family that had triplets with two or three weeks in between each child. Which was entirely miraculous even in his books!
thanks for the comment! I laughed at the misunderstanding of my twins birthdays!
As for the creation research website…. I prefer to keep it at arms length. I do like the way that they critique the scientific method, and that they call uncertain results that are uncertain. However I am troubled by the attempts to tie a particular brand of science to a particular reading of Genesis.
I love science and believe that any progress is good for humans and indeed fulfils the God’s intention for man to ‘name’ the things in creation, in Genesis God brings the animals to Adam to name them – in other words Adam is the first recorded scientist – examining God’s creation and working out what it is and how it works and what it is like. Science is, whether done by believers or unbelievers, only ever doing what God intended man to do: examine the glorious and wonderful creation that God has made. How big and great is God?!
I don’t think we need to worry too much about the order of creation, how long it took, the number of years between Adam and Jesus etc. Because the Genesis account is written in a particular genre – creation myth (yes, I recoil at the word myth as well.) I name it creation myth because there are other ancient ‘myths’ out there (none of which I hold as authoritative except the Bible) that attempt to explain the way that the world came into existence. As I read it, the point of Gen 1-2 is that God did it. God did it as easily as speaking. It was beautiful and luscious and perfect, and man was the special pinnacle of all created things. We do not need to fret over evolution, because God could have used it to create humans. Not that I’m particularly advocating that position, my point is that I don’t know. No one knows except God, because he was the only one who was there. Genesis was not written in the genre of ‘scientific textbook’ because science as we know it now was not invented then. Is the order of sun, then moon, then earth, then waters, plants, fish, animals, people vital to a Hebrew understanding of creation in the same way that it is vital to modern science? I doubt it, it is likely that at the forefront of the author of Genesis’ mind is that God did it with ease and simplicity. The precise manner in which he did it is up for grabs, but I think that the atheists have no better chance of proving that God definitely didn’t do it, as the Christians have of proving he did. It is possible that God used a ‘Big Bang’. No one was there to see, he didn’t speak to us in a scientific manner about it. The way I read it is that he just did it in a manner that was simple for him.
Look I’m rambling, and I have read comments like this before and they are slightly frustrating to read. So let me try to summarise my reactions in evaluation of the approach of sites like the above is that:
+ve:
They have a good foundation of appreciating the truth of the Bible.
They seek to keep secular scientists honest by jumping up and down about uncertainties in their theories.
-ve:
They read Gen 1-2 too much like a science textbook and not enough like a piece of theology.
They tie their faith to the certainty of particular scientific discoveries rather than to a simple trust that God is the great creator who did it no matter how humans reckon he did it.
I don’t know if this helps or not, it might just open a can of worms… let me know.
Whatever the case, peace to you in Jesus name. That’s what’s important, right?
John
Thanks for the reply John,
as for my next comment, I believe that God said what He did. I’ll use your example. With the creation of the sun, moon, earth, waters, plants, fish, animals, people, He said He did it in 7 days. I understand that in reality, there’s no way to know or prove that He did do it in 7 days, but if you don’t believe everything He says about this part, especially since it is the beginning, it leads to other compromises. You said something about evolution. If someone doesn’t believe God created everything in exactly 7 days, they could be open to evolution being a plausible explanation to how we and living things of the earth came to be. But in the Bible, God says He made humans from the dust on the ground. I believe that too. It doesn’t say it took an extra 2-4 million years for dust or anything else to turn into man. So I don’t believe that. The point is, if you compromise on the smaller things, you may compromise on the bigger things. Like Jesus dying on the cross and three days later, raising from the dead. That’s the epitome of our faith. Without that part, he was a just a good profit like the Muslims believe.
And as for the guys at ICR, I don’t think they tie their faith to the certainty of scientific discoveries. I think they are just making a counter-argument to all the atheist and pagan scientists out there. Someone has to defend whats really going on in the science world and they are doing a good job. They shed a light on the subjects of evolution and others that no one else I know of has.
That’s my belief on the matter. I hope you didn’t feel like I was attacking you. I get pretty fired up about these kinds of things and enjoy a good debate.
Look forward to hearing more from you,
Nathaniel
Hi Nathaniel,
No worries, brother. I don’t feel attacked at all, in fact I hope you don’t either. The last thing I would want is to shake the faith of a fellow servant of our great God. That said, I’m going to push my argument further, not to tear you down, but offer you a legitimate evangelical understanding of the creation account.
I don’t feel like I’m compromising on Gen 1-2, nor do I want to imply that I don’t believe any single word of it – I believe it all wholeheartedly! But I do want to say that it is NOT a science text. I don’t mind if anyone believes in 7 x 24 hour periods for the creation of the world. That’s fine, but I don’t. I think that we can stand close to the scientists. However I will point out a difficulty in that belief – the Bible often uses time words with a deal of flexibility (eg. Jesus’ use of ‘hour’ in John’s gospel where a 60min period is definitely not in view.) The fact that we are in the ‘last days’: there have been literally 750,000 days since this was written – however the intention is clear and obvious – the very end is coming *soon*; it is still imminent, time words are being used flexibly. 1 Peter even says that to the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day – time is flexible in the perceptions of God. Perhaps he took 7000 years, perhaps he took 7 million, or 7 billion… Which one? I don’t know. I don’t mind how God did it if the word ‘day’ here is somewhat figurative or literal. The important thing is that God did it.
Let me try to put it a different way. Comparing the events in Gen 1-2 to scientific theories is like comparing Picasso to Da Vinci: both have painted pictures of a seated woman. The Picasso uses broad brush strokes, unexpected colours, thick bold lines, etc. but you can still see that it is a woman sitting down. It’s obvious what it means. Where Da Vinci seeks as best as he can to attain photo-realism, if there is a bluish tinge in the eye of the real one, there is a bluish tinge in the eye of the painting. The depiction of what you see in the painting is pretty much what you see in real life. I think the important parts of Gen 1-2 are what I said before: God did it. God did all of it. God did it all effortlessly. It was good, in fact it was perfect. The details surrounding these are not as important to me as the theology that it expresses. God is the sovereign creator. I believe this with my whole heart and I think that this is what Gen 1-2 is seeking to tell me. I don’t think it is trying to do more than that. i.e. How he did it is up for grabs, but I’m not particularly concerned about what the scientists think here, I hold it at arms length. It’s good that people like ICR keep the science community honest by critiquing their unquestioned assumptions, but whatever they find out in the science community will not really rock my trust that God made the world.
That said, I would argue black and blue that Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day. However here again, I think the important thing is that Jesus was really truly dead, and he really truly rose again in defeat of death. Because we have some real problems to deal with if we take it as three 24 hour periods. That’s not important in my books either. This is a very controversial point actually. An atheist recently pointed out to me that there is a contradiction in the dates of the crucifixion within the gospels – was he crucified on the day of the passover, or the day of preparation? One of the accounts is different – I think if you compare the last supper in the synoptics and the scene before Pilate in John, I can’t remember…. both talk about it being the day of preparation. Logically both can’t be right, there must be an error somewhere, that said the teaching of both is that Jesus is the new passover lamb. He has taken on the sins of the world in his person, suffered death for them and rose again in defeat of death.
The other problem with the resurrection is that it’s ambiguous whether Jesus rising on the third day was: day 1, day 2, rose on day 3 OR it was day 1, day 2, day 3, rose the next day ie “after 3 days”. I don’t know which one it is, but the important thing is that Jesus rose again after being truly dead in true defeat of death. There is now no victory in death. The theology is more important than the scientific accuracy of it. I would argue black and blue that Jesus had a real, bodily, not-just-spiritual resurrection.
I hope this helps your faith, and not shakes it.
John
Ok, thanks John