“If the Scripture does not use nature to prove God, it can’t be the best strategy. Notice that Pascal does not say that there are no good proofs of God or that none of them begin with data from nature. Elsewhere, he specifies merely that such proofs are psychologically weak, but he does not say they are logically weak. More important, they are salvifically weak, [meaning that] they will not save us. If nature proved God clearly, we would not have to search for him with all our hearts.” Pascal further writes in his Pensées 429 , “This is what I see that troubles me… Nature has nothing to offer me that does not give rise to doubt and anxiety…if there is a God supporting nature, she should unequivocally proclaim him, and that, if the signs in nature are deceptive, they should be completely erased; that nature should say all or nothing so that I could see what course I ought to follow.”
This is an excerpt Peter Kraft's commentary on a writing by Blaise Pascal. The excerpt appears on the website of Rice Professor James M. Tour, who makes no bones about telling the world he reads the bible every day and is nourished by it.
Who knew! Could entirely sincere Christians, even great apologists for the faith long before the Age of Darwin, have declared nature an agnostic on telling about God?! So refreshing to hear.
Too often we hear folks coming up with some wacked-out and easily disprovable statement about nature and then follow it up with an altar call. This is what I think of the Young Earth Creationists. The quote above, however, does seem to throw cold water on the enthusiasm that Old Earth Creationist Hugh Ross has about "proving" scripture. I still approve of Hugh Ross' outreach, but perhaps a better statement of what he is doing is "DISproving cheezy objections to the reliability of the bible made from science".
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