Is Compromise a Route to Truth?
Imagine two students are given the same difficult math problem to solve. They work their way through it and each arrives at a different answer. How do you determine what the correct answer is? Do you take their two answers, add them together and then divide by two?
Nonsense!, you say. Yet this is essentially what is done when someone compromises on an issue of truth.
In the example above, one or both of the students was wrong despite the best of intentions. To determine which is most likely to be true we need to ask questions such as the following:
1. Did each student understand the question correctly? (Initial inputs)
2. Did each student obtain correct additional information when needed, such as from tables or appendices? (Selected inputs)
3. Did each student process the formula correctly? That is, did they make any mathematical or logical errors at any step of the process of solving the equation? (Logic structure)
Each student attempted to do each of these three steps correctly. We can select the answer of one student over the other by examining their work in light of the above questions. We may be mistaken ourselves, for we may make the same mistake as the student, or another mistake, but at least we are applying our intelligence to the best of our ability to make a distinct, rational argument for a given answer.
Each student was attempting to build a distinct, rational argument that would arrive at the correct answer. The problem with relying on compromise in a search for truth is that compromise relies on no distinct, single rational argument to arrive at the answer offered in compromise. Rather, compromise positions either rely on an inconsistent hodge-podge collection of arguments that were not generated from a unified, rational position, or on no rational basis whatsoever. One may disagree with either or both the answers given by the students, but to say the answer is one half of both answers added together would be inconsistent with the arguments posed by both students, and would not be based on any rational argument, by itself, at all!
I must offer a caveat here. There is a difference between an intermediate position and a compromise position. An intermediate position may lie in between other positions that have been established, but relies on a rational argument structure of its' own. The fact that other positions lie to either extreme is irrelevant. By contrast a compromise position is one established between conflicting positions by mixing together elements of each argument in a manner that conflicts with the presuppositions of both.
For example, if the two students mentioned above arrived at an answer of 6 and 8 respectively, a third student could potentially arrive at an answer of 7 through an argument all their own. But it would be sheer dumb luck if someone compromised between the first two students' answers and chose 7 and it turned out to be right.
Unfortunately, compromise is rampant in society and the Church today. The opinions of men are held in higher regard than the Word of God, and the results are compromises that neither satisfy the opinions of the non-Christians nor are faithful to the teaching of the Bible.
One example is the methodology used to justify belief in an old earth. This methodology is known as uniformitarianism, or "the present is the key to the past." It assumes that things on the earth today are pretty much as they always have been, and that we should therefore explain past earth history only in terms of the kinds of events we see going on today. Thus, since sedimentary layers today are believed to form very slowly and gradually at the sea floor, sediments in the geologic record must likewise have formed very slowly over millions of years.
Uniformitarianism has come into conflict with actualism, the philosophy of geology to which I subscribe. Actualism points out that uniformitarianism simply is not competent to explain much of what we find in geology, if one wants to have reasonable explanations in the light of mechanics, kinetics, and chemistry, etc. We ought to propose explanations that actually are competent to explain the evidence, even if they have never been observed.
For example, let's say it takes 500 Newtons to move a rock one meter. We observe that the rock has in fact moved one meter from when we last observed it. Let's also say we've never seen a force greater than 100 Newtons. Uniformitarians claim the rock was moved by a force of 100 Newtons, never mind the violation of the laws of physics. Actualists, on the other hand, would say a force of 500 Newtons moved that rock, and I don't care whether we know the source of that force or not!
More to the point, the rule of uniformitarianism assumes past
geologic activity has been of the same nature as the past, but the Bible is a
historical record that says differently. II Peter 3
warns (verses 3-6, NIV):
First of all, you must understand that in the
last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.
They will say, "Where is this `coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers
died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."
But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and
the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the
world of that time was deluged and destroyed.
These verses refer to the Cataclysm (Greek "Kataklusmos," the NT term for the Genesis Flood), and starkly deny the uniformitarian belief that "the present is the key to the past." Rather, the past is the key to the present!
Yet today many compromising "Christians" claim to believe both in the Bible and in the long ages of uniformitarianism. This is not truly possible. Either one accepts the Bible as true and interprets the science data from a young-earth perspective, or one denies II Peter 3 and cannot honestly say they believe the Bible is inerrant.
These compromising Christians do not start from a consistent basis, and as a result their arguments become a hodge-podge of atheistic "science" and appeals to Bible passages that don't offend them. Unity of thought and belief are lost. While they try to mask it, their reliance on their opinions over God's Word gives them about as much chance of being correct in their individual scenarios as the man who claims the answer to the math problem above is (6+8)/2.
We need to start and stand on the principles, data and teachings of God's Word without apology if we are to have any chance of accurately understanding the Bible. The rule is "Scripture interprets Scripture," not "man's ignorant, fallible beliefs interpret Scripture." We can be assured that humanists will attack supposed "errors" in the Bible using the latter approach until the return of Christ. That's what happens when you have a perfect document being judged by an imperfect mind. The fault lies with the judge. So let's not compromise our beliefs with their imperfection!
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