Rejecting Concordism

I occasionally stroll over to American Scientific Affiliation to have a look at some of their free articles. The ASA is an organization of Christians interested in science, and their arguments and discussions over science and religion are frequently transposable to an LDS context. Although I'm not really sure who he is, I have enjoyed the more recent articles written by Paul Seely.

Today I want to highlight "Concordism and a Biblical Alternative: An Examination of Hugh Ross’s Perspective" (pdf). It is a book review and opens with discussion of the Flood, but my interest here is with the discussion that follows beginning on page 42 under the heading, "A Biblical Approach to Science and Scripture."

Concordism is the expectation that scriptures and science/history should match. This is a natural expectation; why would we expect anything else? Seely lays out some reasons why we should expect otherwise, and some of his arguments are quite at home in Mormonism. His main points are as follows:

1. In giving man dominion over the earth, God delegated discovery of natural truths to all people (i.e. believers and unbelievers) and therefore does not give such details in his revelations.

2. When the biblical writers rely on human sources, mistakes may be incorporated into scripture. "The idea that inspiration will correct or avoid all factual errors in a biblical historian’s sources is not taught in Scripture nor borne out by the phenomena of Scripture."

3. "God’s revelation is organically related to the people to whom it is given and consequently is sometimes accommodated to culturally pre-ingrained ideas." Examples include the permissibility of divorce and slavery.

4. Such accommodation is needed in order facilitate communication, and even belief.

5. "God is not lying or erring, therefore, when his Word does not agree with the findings of modern science because the science per se which he has incorporated into Scripture is not a revelation from God but is simply an accommodation to the science of those times."

To Mormons most of this is uncontroversial, although the specific application may be. Things get a little more tricky when the teachings of ancient prophets are refracted through the revelations of Joseph Smith (e.g. Moses and Abraham). We have to wonder, do the revelations reflect (i) ultimate scientific/historical truth, (ii) accommodation to the ancient prophet's culture, or (iii) accommodation to Joseph's culture (or maybe a mixture of the three)? Committed LDS scholars are of divergent opinions on this question.

Seely again:

By the time of the writing of Genesis, the Israelites already had these ideas about creation, the flood, and the post-flood world deeply ingrained in their culture. As with their ingrained beliefs about easy divorce and slavery, these beliefs about early human history were too imbedded to be summarily contradicted. The original false theology in these traditions was radically revised in the light of the revelation given to Abraham and his descendants, and historical details could be altered in part, but the pre-embedded historical outline could not be changed.

These things were also ingrained in Joseph Smith's culture, and that may explain why our additional scriptures also do not contradict them (see 1-5 above). If Joseph had no reason to question the accuracy of these traditions (e.g. Biblical chronology was still thought to apply to human civilization until around 1860), should we expect his revelations to overturn or alter them?

Thus, Seely argues that we need not twist scripture or science to make them match, nor need we reject one in order to accept the other.

We are reading the divine revelation given to a people from a historically distant and far different cultural background. We need to appreciate the cultural context of those first readers and of God’s condescension to them. Instead of insisting that God and Scripture live up to our expectations that the Bible fit the findings of modern science, we would do better to accept and learn from what God has actually done, read the Bible strictly for the purposes for which it was given, and pursue science with an eye to uncovering the truths of creation to the glory of God.

[Note: For previous posts that touch on concordism, see my new category label, scriptural concordism.]

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