Inculturating Christian faith

A common objection to the Protestant faith is that we don't find Protestantism in early church history. We don't find it in the church fathers or ancient liturgies. That objection has never had any resonance with me, for a couple of reasons:

i) We can read the Bible for ourselves. We can compare the Bible to the church fathers and various developments in church history. We can see for ourselves the extent to which patristic theology or medieval theology does or doesn't matchup with biblical paradigms. 

When I say we can read the Bible for ourselves, I'm including Bible scholarship that seeks to interpret Scripture in the original setting. There's no reason to treat the church fathers as the filter through which we must read the Bible. Biblical revelation is independent of the church fathers, and by comparing the two, we can see discrepancies. 

One problem is that early on there was a break between the church and the synagogue, so that many church fathers lose the Jewish context of Scripture. It veers off in some dubious directions. 

ii) Cultural recontextualization is an issue in missiology. Church history unfolded the way it did due to its historical and geographical point of origin, in the Roman Empire. But that's a historical accident–albeit a providential accident.

If ancient China, India, Japan, or South America (to take a few examples at random) had been the epicenter of the Christian faith, then church history would fork off in a very different direction. If that was the frame of reference, then you wouldn't find Greek Orthodoxy or Latin theology in early church history. You wouldn't find that in the church fathers or ancient liturgies, because the "church fathers" would be Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Mayan, &c. 

The expansion of the faith creates a cross-pollination between the Gospel and indigenous cultures. That carries with it the danger of syncretism. A danger that's often realized in varying degrees.

However, the Christian faith can be inculturated in diverse, but legitimate and authentic ways. For instance, when Protestant missionaries evangelize the Dominican Republic, you end up with a distinctive religious fusion. Same thing when Protestant missionaries evangelize Eskimos. Or modern messianic Jewish movements.  

Scripture isn't a blueprint for how the Christian faith must be appropriated. Scripture provides essential guidelines for ruling in or ruling out certain developments. But there's an area of freedom where Scripture is silent. 

That doesn't mean there can't be illegitimate developments. There are, and these are serious aberrations. But certain kinds of diversity in the form of worship, for instance, are permissible. In alternate history scenarios, there'd be different cultural starting-points, producing a fluid, dynamic interplay between revelation and application. It's very provincial and ethnocentric to make Greece and Rome the template for authentic Christianity. And notice how often the NT letters must be countercultural. How often the NT letters must curb the dominance of indigenous social mores and thought-patterns. There's no cultural template that's normative for Christians. Only divine revelation enjoys that status. 

“Discover the Networks” on “The [Political] Left”

A reader named “Top Quark” commented:

In other words, he failed to show the careful attention to facts, logic, argument, and theology that you usually demonstrate, in an effort to take a cheap shot at "the left" (whoever he envisions that to be). Obviously it's his blog [article] to do with as he wishes. It's my prerogative to call him out when he makes preposterously overbroad, empirically false, completely unprovable statements and to go elsewhere if he persists in doing so.

Whenever I refer to “The Left”, I’m referring to the network of networks among those individuals who consider themselves to be “thought leaders” – in universities, primarily, in some philosophy departments, “feminist studies”, Black studies, “gender studies”, etc. There are of course many others documented here in politics and media as well.

These are thoroughly-well documented in the DiscoverTheNetworks.org website, where individual thinkers, sources of funding, various groups devoted to various political issues are all mapped and documented. There is nothing “preposterously overbroad”, nothing “empirically false”, nothing “unprovable” at this site. Perhaps Top Quark’s curiosity can be sated with a quick perusal of this site.

Grudem on ethics

Wayne Grudem has published a new book on Christian ethics. I haven't read it, and I don't intend to, although I've read two of the entries which were originally written for festschrifts. Grudem is an exemplary Christian gentleman and helpful popularizer of Reformed theology. I'm sure his new book on ethics has a lot of fine material, but I don't think he's qualified to write a book on ethics. He should leave that to Christians with keener minds and greater subtlety–like Bill Davis and John Frame. 

I'm going to comment on some of the annotated entries in his new book (see below). I agree with him that Christians aren't confronted with absolute moral dilemmas, although he and I sometimes disagree on what's sinful. Case in point: his position on lying. I've posted responses to him on both topics, so I won't recycle that.

What I wish to note in this post is points of tension in his overall position. For his position on some topics comes into conflict with his position on some other topics. Take his absolutist prohibition on lying compared to his position on war. But military deception is an essential stratagem in warfare. And self-defense sometimes involves the same principle. So his absolutist position on lying has unwittingly pacifistic implications.  

And this spills over into abortion and euthanasia. Consider the sting videos exposing Planned Parenthood. Likewise, once doctors are required to practice euthanasia, it's hazardous to be too forthcoming about your symptoms if those point to a medical condition which makes you a candidate for involuntary euthanasia. Or a patient you represent, if they lack the competence to speak for themselves. 

So Grudem's position is shortsighted and incoherent. His misplaced scruples impose conditions that sabotage some of his other positions. 

“Tell the truth and pay the price”

This is a pretty good speech about the power of narrative to shape culture, and how “the left” has pretty much got a lock on untrue narrative. The title is “Tell the truth and pay the price” — I’m not able to embed it here, because it’s not on YouTube — but you should watch this if you can.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?449308-1/national-conservative-student-conference-andrew-klavan#

Rome's clouded crystal ball

Introduction

After the introduction, I'm going to provide extensive documentation for major reversals in Catholic theology. But I'll anticipate a few objections:

1. A Catholic might object that I'm burning a straw man. Sure, Catholic doctrine changes. No one disputes that. Some changes represent a development of doctrine. In other cases, the tradition wasn't infallible to begin with. 

2. I'm aware of those caveats. For starters, Unam Sanctam is as good a candidate for an infallible claimant as anything. The pope uses stock formulae for promulgating dogma. On top of that, his position was ratified by two ecumenical councils. So if that's not irreformable, there are no better candidates. 

3. Another problem with the caveat is that it renders the public teaching of the Catholic church untrustworthy. For centuries, Rome inculcated certain beliefs. Cultivated those beliefs in the minds of the faithful. If that can be set aside, then there's no reason for the faithful to have any confidence in the public teaching of the church. It's driving by means of the rearview mirror rather than the windshield. 

4. A Catholic might object that because there are sometimes multiple strands of Catholic tradition, a development may represent the development of a particular strand of transition. 

And it's true that because Catholic tradition is so pluriform you can probably be consistent with Catholic tradition by selectively developing one particular tradition. Take modification of the extra Ecclesiam nulla salus principle by appeal to the tradition of invincible ignorance. Those who lack Christian faith through no fault of their own.

Problem is, that nullifies Unam Sanctam and its conciliar counterparts. It requires submission to the pope. It specifies pagans and Jews among the hellbound. It ties that to lack of access to the sacraments. You can't widen that by development. You can only recant it. Yet it has a stronger claim to dogma than invincible ignorance. 

5. Some of these are issues of utmost consequence. Why should anyone trust a denomination that backpedals on such fundamental issues?

6. There are two ways Rome can annul a position. One is to formally revoke it. The other way is to let it lapse. Die of neglect. The latter strategy saves face, but the effect is the same. Invalidate the status quo ante in practice. 

7. When Rome adopted Newman's theory of development, it substituted a different paradigm of tradition in midcourse. Like winning a game retroactively after you lost the game. You simply change the rules, then apply them retroactively. There were the rules going in. You lost. But you win by changing the rules after the fact. 

The historic definition of tradition was a theological criterion. To change the criterion is cheating. A tacit admission that you didn't measure up by your own yardstick, so you replace it with a rubber ruler.   

Catholicism under the dome

1. Infallibility is a principle in Catholic and Protestant theology alike, although the locus of authority is different. 

2. Catholic apologists object that having an infallible Bible is pointless without an infallible interpreter. Likewise, Protestants are stuck with a fallible canon. How can you be certain that your interpretation is right? How can you be certain your canon has the right books?

But one problem with that line of argument is that it either proves too much or too little. For traditional Protestants, the circle of infallibility is drawn around the Bible. For traditional Catholics, the circle of infallibility is drawn around the extraordinary magisterium or ordinary universal magisterium. But in principle, the circle can always be wider. In that respect, the boundaries are arbitrary. Wherever you draw the circle, a larger circle could be drawn. Why is the pope only infallible when he speaks ex cathedra? Why not all the time? Why aren't bishops infallible? Or priests? Or the laity? Or Christians generally?

If the ideal is certainty, then enlarging the circle of infallibility enlarges the scope of certainty. So the logic of the Catholic argument exceeds the boundaries of Catholicism. The logic of the argument doesn't stop with the extraordinary magisterium or ordinary universal magisterium. 

According to Catholicism, Catholics can and must get along just fine without infallible certainty most of the time. Protestants simply draw a narrower circle. 

3. In addition, the Catholic ideal is a mirage. Catholics take refuge in a visible church, but dogma is invisible. Thanks to the doctrine of development, the circle of infallibility is drawn in undetectable ink. Catholics can't see what's inside the circle and outside the circle because the line is invisible. Imperceptible because future developments may revise or reverse the public teaching of the church. No one, including the pope, knows where the circle is drawn because present-day popes don't know what future popes will teach or retract. 

Catholic apologists don't believe in the Catholic church as it actually exists, but in a stainless abstraction. A hermetically sealed city under a dome, like domed cities in science fiction.  

4. I don't concede that Protestants have a fallible canon. That's hard to say because the evidence for the canon includes internal evidence, viz. authorial ascriptions, cross-references. If Scripture is infallible, then internal evidence for Scripture is infallible. 

5. In Calvinism, infallibility isn't confined to the Bible. Rather, an infallible God stands behind infallible Scripture. Rather than having an infallible church, we have an infallible God. Rather than having an infallible church, we have infallible providence.  Although the elect are fallible, God infallibly guides the elect to heaven. 

A Catholic might object that that's just my personal belief, but ultimately our personal beliefs will always be the starting-point and endpoint. We can't escape our own minds. That's the filter. Catholics are not exempt. 

Saving Catholicism from the pope

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/pope-francis-and-capital-punishment

In the shadow of death

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

Many of them have asked me how it is possible to face death without the certainty of an afterlife. I can only say that it hasn’t been a problem. With reservations about "feeble souls," I have the view of a hero of mine, Albert Einstein: "I cannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes his creatures or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I—nor would I want to—conceive of an individual that survives his physical death. Let feeble souls, from fear for absurd egotism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoting striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature." Carl Sagan, “In the Valley of the Shadow,” Parade Magazine (March 10 1996).

That's boilerplate secular humanism. But was Sagan really that nonchalant about oblivion? 

Some aspects of the treatment were extremely painful, but there’s a kind of traumatic amnesia that happens, so that when it’s all over you’ve almost forgotten the pain. The Hutch has an enlightened policy of self-administered anti-pain drugs, including morphine derivatives, so that I could immediately deal with severe pain. It made the whole experience much more bearable.

"I’m afraid I have some bad news for you," the physician said. My bone marrow had revealed the presence of a new population of dangerous rapidly reproducing cells. In two days, the whole family was back in Seattle. I’m writing this article from my hospital bed at the Hutch. Through a new experimental procedure, it was determined that these anomalous cells lack an enzyme that would protect them from two standard chemotherapeutic agents—chemicals I hadn’t been given before. After one round with these agents, no anomalous cells—not one—could be found in my marrow. To mop up and stragglers (they can be a few but very fast growing), I’m in the midst of two more rounds of chemotherapy—probably to be topped off with some more cells from my sister. Once more, I have a real shot at a complete cure.

In fact, he underwent three bone marrow transplants, despite the excruciating pain of his treatment. Isn't that the behavior of someone terrified of death? Someone desperately clinging to life? His brave words say one thing, but his actions send a different message. 

How to paint yourself into a corner

Convert to Catholicism and Catholic philosopher Ed Feser:

For another thing, if the Pope is saying that capital punishment is always and intrinsically immoral, then he would be effectively saying – whether consciously or unconsciously – that previous popes, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and even divinely inspired Scripture are in error. If this is what he is saying, then he would be attempting to “make known some new doctrine,” which the First Vatican Council expressly forbids a pope from doing. He would, contrary to the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI, be “proclaim[ing] his own ideas” rather than “bind[ing] himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word.” He would be joining that very small company of popes who have flirted with doctrinal error. And he would be undermining the credibility of the entire Magisterium of the Church, including his own credibility. For if the Church has been that wrong for that long about something that serious, why should we trust anything else she teaches? And if all previous popes have been so badly mistaken about something so important, why should we think Pope Francis is right? 

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2017/10/15/the-popes-remarks-on-capital-punishment-need-to-be-clarified/

That was before Francis made it official by rewriting the Catechism. 

Catholic pacifism

This is a sequel to my previous post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/08/papal-eraser.html

1. Ross Douthat characterized the change in Catholic policy on the admission of divorced Catholics to communion as a elite crisis. I don't know whether the change regarding capital punishment will precipitate another crisis, but I'd say this is more of a rank-and-file issue. The doctrinal issues surrounding the readmission of divorced Catholics to communion are arcane and artificial. Only theological junkies care about that. By contrast, the reasoning behind the death penalty is much more accessible to the laity. 

2. Gen 9:5-6 only directly authorizes capital punishment for murder. Yet the Mosaic law contains many capital offenses. In some cases, those may have a different rationale, such as the cultic holiness of Israel. In other cases, they may be an extension of the same principle: actions which desecrate divine image-bearers. 

3. In relation to the new Catholic position, it isn't necessary to take a position on the degree of continuity or discontinuity between the Mosaic law and the new covenant. For the immediate question isn't whether any of those penalties remain mandatory, but whether they were ever morally permissible to begin with. If “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, then the Mosaic death penalties were always unwarranted. 

Of course, many Catholic bishops, theologians, and academics are happy to grant that the Mosaic law was fallible and errant. Problem is, why should "the Church" be infallible if the Bible is fallible? Why should ecumenical councils or ex cathedra papal pronouncements be infallible if the Mosaic law is fallible and errant? 

4. If “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, then that seems to rule out lethal force in self-defense as well as lethal force to protect other innocent lives, for taking human life, regardless of the situation, is an attack in the inviolability and dignity of the assailant. 

Christian ethicists typically think that humans have a prima facie right to life which they can forfeit by certain actions. An armed intruder breaking into a private home forfeits his prima facie immunity to suffer harm.

However, the new official position of the Catholic church treats the dignity of the assailant as equal to the dignity of the victim. That's absolute. Nothing the assailant does can lower his inviolate dignity.

5. This approach erases the distinction between guilt and innocence, which is the essence of justice. The very concept of just punishment requires a distinction between a wrongdoer and a victim who was wronged. Justice is supposed to treat like cases alike and unlike cases unalike. It subverts the essence of justice to treat innocents and assailants equally. 

Papal eraser

1. Pope Francis has rewritten the Catechism to forbid capital punishment across the board. Here's the official announcement:

http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/0556/01210.html#letteraing

And here's the newly worded position in the CCC: 

Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.

Ross Douthat on the death penalty vis-a-vis Francis

Ross Douthat 
@DouthatNYT
And life imprisonment under many penal conditions seems more contrary to human dignity than the death penalty.

But the bottom line is that this is another example of how Pope Francis has consistently exposed the tensions in the post-Vatican II conservative position, and pushed the JPII synthesis into intellectual crisis.

Now Francis is going further, doing something dramatic enough to be described as "development of doctrine" or a "new paradigm" -- but still preserving a touch of deniability on the definitiveness of the change, in which continuitarians can take refuge.

Another way to see this is that on both the death penalty and divorce, the JPII synthesis stretched the claim of continuity -- with a prudential anti-death penalty arg that *sounded* absolute, and a liberal annulment policy -- without making a formal break.

Which is also the effective pattern in other arenas -- like divorce -- where Francis has sought to shift a teaching without formally using the language of reversal. You can argue that constant teaching remains constant, but no normal person listening to popes would think that.

But anyone arguing for continuity has to recognize that at the very least this kind of shift turns the traditional teaching into a sort of hermetic secret, available to ppl who read extremely carefully but invisible in the normal public teaching of the church.

So you could argue -- and some will -- that we're still stopping sort of reversal, that the church is still emphasizing modern conditions to make a prudential argument rather than an absolute one -- even though some of its language is absolutizing.

Now we have new language that seems to go further, describing the death penalty as "inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person," and urging its worldwide abolition.

How gay rights reinforces elite power

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/08/culture-war-as-class-war

Life with Trump

How should social conservatives position themselves in relation to Pres. Trump? There are roughly three options:

i) Defend everything he says and does

ii) Constantly tear him down for his latest juvenile tweet

iii) Withhold comment

1. I don't take Trump's statements seriously. What I take seriously is what the Trump administration does. That's the focus of my assessment. That's my priority.

2. Trump's character flaws are conspicuous, well-documented, and deeply engrained. Since he's unlikely to change, it's unnecessary to comment on every juvenile tweet. Since Trump is a known-quantity, there's no point in constantly remarking on what we already know about him. That doesn't advance understanding. It's mechanical repetition. 

And it's not a good stewardship of time. I have better things to do with my time than stay up-to-date on his latest twitter wars or offhand comments at a press conference. 

It's like atheists who freak out over the latest natural disaster that kills a lot of people. "Where was your god?" Every time that happens, they press the rewind button and play the same prerecorded accusation. 

But if we already have theodicies in place to account for moral and natural evil, the latest natural disaster doesn't affect our rationale. It's unnecessary to readjudicate the existence of God every time another natural disaster strikes, or some atrocity, because we've already got that covered. Our theology makes allowance for that. It's not surprising. To the contrary, it's to be expected.

3. It's like pouncing on every impolitic statement Gen. Patton makes, or brewing over the possibility that Ike had an extramarital affair with Kay Summersby. If your priority is surviving WWII or the Cold War, it's counterproductive to constantly tear down your best generals. 

It's not a choice between supporting whatever they say and do or opposing everything they say wrong. Sometimes you don't have to say anything. Withholding comment isn't the same thing as defending them. 

Fact is, criticism is more effective if you reserve it for important things. Otherwise, if you're a chronic faultfinder, people tune you out even when you have something worthwhile to say.  

What's in play

Regarding this debate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNmbIXYxcTs&feature=youtu.be

It may be in part a generational thing. I think religious Jewish conservatives of the Prager/Medved generation (as well as secular Jewish hawks like Henry Kissinger, Charles Krauthammer, and Richard Perle) are more cynical. They have lower expectations about politics and politicians. So they settle for less. They're more pragmatic. If you're too idealistic, you lose. You end up with nothing. 

A Jewish conservative of Shapiro's generation might be more confrontational. That may be in part because you didn't have the culture wars when Prager/Medved et al. came of age. I think culture warriors like Shapiro regard the more concessive strategy as a failure. When we compromise, the Left wins. So Jews like Shapiro and Levin (who's older than Shapiro but younger than Prager/Medved) are pushing back hard with all they've got. 

There's a parallel with the Holocaust. The old Jewish strategy was accommodation. Go along to get along. But the end of that road was the Shoah.

Younger Israelis look down on Holocaust survivors because they didn't fight back. They were too passive. Too nonresistant. 

Younger Israelis regard the Warsaw uprising as an inspirational model. If you're doomed, at least take as many of the enemy with you to the grave. 

I think that's why Israel breaks out the brass knuckles when necessary. Israel can't count on the "international community" to protect Jews. Indeed, much of the "international community" is rooting for the Muslims, or just doesn't care if Jews are wiped off the face of the map. So you have to be tough as nails to survive.  

Both sides have a reasonable position, and it's hard to say ahead of time which strategy will succeed or fail. A successful strategy at one time or place may be disastrous at another time or place. 

On the one hand, I agree with Shapiro that we always need to retain our critical detachment. We can't let political leaders be the ideological leaders. We need a definition of conservatism that's independent of political leaders.  

On the other hand, many on the Left who think social conservative are hypocritical for supporting the Trump administration don't know what hypocrisy is. They have no grasp of Christian ethics. They measure Christians by a yardstick that's not a Christian yardstick, then accuse Christians of inconsistency. 

Many of these critics are impervious to correction. They're fanatically invested in their narrative. Although we need to explain ourselves, it's futile to imagine that will win over all the critics. They demand nothing short of wholesale capitulation. 

Pleiotropic genes

A brief exchange I had on Facebook:

Hays 

Dennis Venema recently claims that one evidence for whale evolution is "genes for air-based olfaction (smelling) in whales that no longer even have olfactory organs." Other questions aside, does each gene have a single function, or can the same gene have multiple functions?

My point, of course, is that if the same gene can perform two or more functions, then the fact that some animals have a gene with a "useless" function, that doesn't entail that it derives from a distant ancestor which had that function, viz. land mammals to marine mammals. For the same gene may have another useful function.

Tony 

That's a very good question. Many genes are pleiotropic i.e. they have multiple functions. I wasn't sure whether that was the case for odorant receptors but this paper suggests that they are present elsewhere as well: 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303720705004818?via%3Dihub

Reinventing Catholicism

http://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2018/08/02/pope-francis-changes-catechism-to-say-death-penalty-inadmissible/

Ecological equilibrium

A critic might object that creationism (be it old-earth or young-earth) is ad hoc in this respect: if a particular ability confers a survival advantage, why does an organism ever lose that ability? Conversely, if an organism has an adaptive potential that confers a survival advantage, why does that ever remain undeveloped? 

Of course, if an organism is in an environment where the ability ceases to be beneficial (e.g. eyesight in caves), then it's understandable why it might become vestigial. But what about situations where it will still be advantageous, yet that ability is lost? 

The problem with that line of objection is that it treats species in isolation. But the frame of reference is what is good for the ecosystem, and not what's optimal for any particular species. The goal is to maintain the equilibrium of the ecosystem. 

Predators should succeed often enough to main replacement rate. Prey should elude predators and propagate often enough to maintain replacement rate. Likewise, if herbivores are too competitive, they will overgraze and thereby damage the ecosystem. It's not just a relationship between predators and prey, but fauna and flora. Plants and herbivores. 

So we're dealing with a dynamic system that has to be flexible. Adjust to changing variables. At one time or place, predators may need to be more proficient, while at another time or place they may need to be less proficient, to maintain the balance of nature. It's important to have potential abilities. Sometimes those need to be developed. At other times they need to atrophy. 

I'm not a biologist or zoologist, but that's my layman's explanation. 

Whale evolution

I was asked to comment on this:

For me personally (as a geneticist) comparative genomics (comparing DNA sequences between different species) has really sealed the deal on evolution. Even if Darwin had never lived and no one else had come up with the idea of common ancestry, modern genomics would have forced us to that conclusion even if there was no other evidence available (which of course manifestly isn’t the case). For example, we see the genes for air-based olfaction (smelling) in whales that no longer even have olfactory organs.

https://biologos.org/blogs/dennis-venema-letters-to-the-duchess/ask-an-evolutionary-creationist-a-q-a-with-dennis-venema

I'm not a Cetologist, but neither is Venema. Speaking as a laymen, a few observations:

i) Both old-earth and young-earth creationism make allowance for adaptation and loss of function. For instance, blind cave fish are consistent with creationism. 

ii) From what I've read, one of the challenges facing macroevolution isn't loss of information but the source of new information necessary to generate new organs and body plans. 

iii) I guess what Venema is angling at is that whales have vestigial genes for air-based olfaction because their distant ancestors were land animals. Put another way, the assumption seems to be that marine animals never had any need of air-based olfaction, since their natural element is water. But is that true?

Years ago I saw a nature show in which a killer whale was cruising the shoreline of an island breeding ground for penguins and seals. It doesn't take much imagination to see how air-based olfaction might be useful for a marine predator whose diet includes semiaquatic prey that spends on some time on the beach. Likewise, I saw a nature show in which polar bears hunt beluga whales that surface for air in breathing holes in sea ice. Once again, it doesn't take much imagination to see how air-based olfaction might be useful to sniff out polar bears. That might be too late in the case of breathing holes, but ice flows also have shifting stream-like openings, where it might be useful to sniff out prowling polar bears. And even if there's loss of function in extant species, it might have conferred a survival advantage in the past. 

iv) But even if that's an explanation for why beluga-like or orca-like whales once had air-based olfaction, why whales in general? To take a comparison, I have many organs and body parts, not because I'm human, but because I'm mammalian. By the same token, a dormant capacity for air-based olfaction might be part of the cetacean package, even if it's potential utility is confined to particular species or adaptations. 

v) Finally, here's an overview of the massive hurdles facing whale evolution: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx10NX2Plk4

Jonah and the submarine

Atheists routinely say any naturalistic explanation, however far-fetched, is more likely than any supernatural explanation. For a reductio ad absurdum of that principle, consider the claim that Jonah was swallowed by an ancient alien submarine!

Of course, the book of Jonah doesn't say the fish had bronze ribs. That's from an unrelated, mythopoetic passage in Job 40:18.