Dr. Gerhard van Wyk:
Hiding behind the fig leaves
Deconstructing the Philosophical Fig Leaves of Liberals and Theistic Evolutionists
What is this all about?
Dr. Gerhard van Wyk, a retired geologist and professor of theology, has spent many years researching how liberalism and theistic evolution have attacked the First Angel’s Message: “Fear God and give glory to Him … and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water” (Rev. 14:7). It is due time to preach and teach the First Angel’s Message again. This message leads us to true worship and to the creator God Who is the only One worthy of worship. This is the God who created “the heavens and the earth, and the springs of water.” These words refer to the fourth commandment and to the creation story of Genesis 1. Liberalism and theistic evolution, however, are leading people away from the biblical God to worship their own fabricated god – a limited god like the golden calf of Sinai. These “golden god images” may satisfy their materialistic worldly-mindedness, but ultimately end in a hopeless search for meaning that cannot redeem them from their own slavery in Egypt -the land of many false gods. Theistic evolution did not arise straight from an informed fossil-loaded strata. Its foundation was built on modernistic science, searching for absolute truths, and supported by the Enlightenment “tools” of rationality and empiricism. Liberal /theistic evolutionary theory was also strengthened by philosophy and the popularity of materialism and its technology. Liberal theologians welcomed the Trojan Horse of historical criticism to create an absolute intellectual version of the Bible. What they did exceed to produce was a limited god, a Christ without His divinity, His resurrection, and His Second Coming. Their naturalistic and anti-biblical worldview, did away with miracles and the Genesis 1 creation story. Liberal theologians, such as Schleiermacher downgraded Christ’s divinity to a mere god-consciousness, whereas Bultmann’s demythologization went even further and demoted the Bible to an irrelevant book of myths. Notwithstanding Darwin’s protest against God’s involvement in his creation story, liberals insisted that a limited god – a deistic kind of god, needs to be included in their theistic evolutionary version, however, they were not sure what this god’s function would be. Their gospel story, being without God’s commandments and a high value of human life, were often substitute by pragmatic psychological guidelines, thereby rejecting Christian morality and ethics in favor of eugenics.
Is there a necessity for this book and its message?
A faithless world has progressively lost its resistance to an atheistic worldview, e.g., traditional religious countries, such as Europe and the USA are increasing becoming anti-religious. People who have not completely accepted the propaganda of liberals/theistic evolution have nevertheless lost their belief in the authority of the Bible. Many of these young people are today tempted to turn to an emotional spiritual experience, worshipping a god who does not require obedience. All that is vital to them is to enjoy an unlimited “spiritual” happiness on their pleasure-filled journey; albeit one that is void of any Christian values or morality, which ultimately ends in nihilism.
For whom was this book written?
Seventh-Day Adventist pastors, teachers, and parents are living in a secular world where they are daily bombarded by the materialistic propaganda of evolution. My dialogue with our pastors and teachers has indicated that many of our religious educators lack a clear understanding of the hidden assumptions of liberals and evolutionists. Being confronted by theistic evolution/liberalism, these educators - if not fallen prey to this atheistic-oriented attack - may find it very difficult to preach and teach a message of certainty from a deauthorized Bible. Our educators need to be as “living stones” to build a wall of safety to not only shield young people from being under attack at university and at school, but also to spiritually empower them to become biblical and Christ-centered witnesses.
Brief content of this book:
The first two chapters (1 & 2) discuss how a scientific and philosophical oriented worldview developed and its devastating influence on theology.
The next two chapters (3 & 4) introduce liberalism’s hermeneutical tools which enabled liberals to radically reinterpret the Bible and to construct a foundation for theistic evolution.
5 & 6 examine how science was corrupted into scientism and made room for evolution/theistic evolution (6) to construct a pseudo-scientific status.
Hermeneutical issues (7) Historical criticism became a quasi-scientific method to analyze and evaluate the biblical reports which undermined the authority of the Bible and its Author.
Chapters (8-10) analyze how liberals limited God and Christ, and ultimately saddled with the poisonous morality of survival of the fittest.
The last two chapters (11 & 12) give a brief Adventist biblical/theological response to liberals’ and theistic evolutionist’s unbiblical constructions.
About the author.
Dr. Gerhard Van Wyk graduated as a geologist. After becoming a Christian, he studied theology and served as a pastor for 25 years. He completed his doctoral degree (D.Th.) at the University of South Africa, where he was appointed as a professor and promotor. After immigrating to the USA, he continued as contract promotor and examiner at the same university. For more than 35 years, he has researched philosophy and science and their dialogue with theology.
QUOTES:
Philip Skell, (member of the National Academy of Sciences): “Darwinian evolution has functioned more as a philosophical belief system than as a testable scientific hypothesis.” Mark Johansen asserts that: “out of the ten pseudo-scientific challenges he discussed, the theory of evolution meets nine of them.”
Richards argues: Evolution is based on a godless foundation leaving its proponents naked. To rescue themselves: (Michael Ruse and Robert J. Richards, The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Ethic). Ludwig von Bertalanffy, in Systems Theory re Evolution: “The fact that a theory so vague, so insufficiently verifiable, and so far from the criteria otherwise applied in ‘hard’ science has become a dogma can only be explained on sociological grounds.”
John D. Caputo, in Philosophy and Theology: “Contrary to the myths of scientific positivism, scientists are not pure, bloodless observers, recording information like automated information-gathering systems; they are flesh and blood people with hunches, intuitions, and strong feelings. They do not passively record but actively project.”
Alfred Gierer “Modern science, … claims validity for all events in space and time. However, it also reveals its own limitations, such as the indeterminacy of quantum physics, the limits of decidability, and, presumably, limits of de-codability of the mind-brain relationship.” (Alfred Gierer, Gödel Meets Carnap: A Prototypical Discourse on Science and Religion)
N. T. Wright: “ … the world could cope––with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside His disciples’ minds and hearts. The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God’s new creation right in the middle of the old one.” (Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church)
CONTACTING THE AUTHOR:
Dr. A. Gerhard van Wyk
Email: agervanwyk@gmail.com
Phone (Cell): 559-301-7263
This book is focused on the reading interest of academics, pastors, and all educators. Lectures on this book are ideally suited to present at Campmeetings, and pastors and teachers’ meetings. A series of PPoint presentations is being prepared on this Book.