I agree with John about getting it “Wrong Every Time.” I would like to offer my understanding of what causes us to do that and, from my perspective, how we can approach getting it right. From my software engineering background I will contrast what I view as two different approaches to constructing a belief system, suggesting what problems are intrinsic to one and what I view as the advantages of the other.

In part, the Faith and Science symposium held at Glacier View last August dealt with the severe cognitive dissonance between classical Seventh-day Adventist theology and information from science. It seems to me that the root cause of this dissonance is our unrealistic notion of inspiration, which motivates us to build a theological edifice from what I will call a “bottom up” rather than a “top down” perspective. While both of these approaches can be used successfully in designing computer software, I am suggesting here that only the latter gives superior results when designing a belief system.

The risks of building from the bottom up In the bottom-up approach, one starts with a list of doctrines. In our case, these include a young earth, a six-day creation, young life, the fall and subsequent expulsion from the garden, a global flood, no death before the fall, the cross, salvation, inspiration to only a chosen few, and a recent prophetess. Think of these, along with those required to complete the list, as subsystem components. The engineering process for designing a theology using this approach involves choosing which components will be used, how they will be interconnected and interfaced, and what will be their interdependencies.

Before one starts such an enterprise, there must be a purpose which the resulting theological edifice is supposed to accomplish. Presumably one important objective is to achieve a better understanding of God. While the bottom-up approach sometimes does result in what we view as a better appreciation and description of God than we had before, there are several major risks inherent in using it.

One problem is that when any one of the constituents (components, interdependencies and interfaces) of the edifice fails, the whole structure has a tendency to collapse. Then one must pick up what’s left and start over, or completely abandon the enterprise. If a great amount of energy was used in the building process, some cannot resist the temptation to defend the system at all cost. Others will abandon the system in its entirety rather than rebuild.

There is a risk that pride—of ownership, of design, of creation and of construction cost—will cause us to believe we have the ultimate system, “the whole truth.” Then we succumb to the temptation to defend our handiwork no matter what, and especially when it is threatened by someone pointing to compelling evidence from science and/or history that some constituent has a serious weakness and is probably theologically unnecessary anyway. The idea that perhaps we did “get it wrong” is, we then think, untenable. So we react to protect what we have worked so hard to create. While such reaction is understandable, it usually suffers from having unintended consequences and undesirable side effects.

Building from the top down with 3 big questions My suggestion for getting it right is to construct the belief system from the “top down” instead of from the bottom up. Then it can’t collapse. My way of starting is the same as Descartes’: “I think, therefore I am.” I exist and reality exists. I speak now in the first person telling how I proceed from there. I see three big questions, the answers to which, for me, set the tone for all that follows.

Does God exist?

How I answer this First Question has no bearing upon whether or not God really exists (the word “really” in this case is meaningless anyway). But my answer has enormous meaning for how and why I choose to really live my life, “really” now being pregnant with meaning. I must make this decision in the complete absence of compelling scientific or historic evidence. If there were such hard evidence, I would not be free to make this most important of all decisions as I choose.

Any God worthy of The Name transcends scientific methods of analysis, investigation and proof. Any god whose existence could be proved using the rules of mathematical logic or the investigative principles of physics would be totally inadequate to receive my respect, love, admiration and worship. Worse than that, I would always be subject to those who worked out the proof, the demonstration, obliged to learn about and approach God through them, contradictory to the message of Jesus whose mission was to democratize knowledge about, and access to, God.

I have personally answered my First Question in the affirmative. For me the idea that God exists computes. It is my fundamental postulate, my basic assumption. To argue that there can be nothing other than that for which we can obtain hard evidence is arrogance. To claim possession of detailed knowledge of that “Other” is equally arrogant.

My Second Question follows immediately: Is this God relevant to me as a human? Are God’s existence and mine connected in some important way? I believe that I exist because God created. This second postulate establishes a very important relationship between God and me. God is Creator and I am created. God is God and I am human. Being human is my most basic permanent operating characteristic.

With these two most important fundamental assumptions established, I can now look all around me and see extensive evidence of the consequences of God’s creative act(s). And whether that is plural or singular is not only irrelevant but also undecidable. The important thing to note is that the evidence follows, rather than leads, my choice of fundamental postulates.

My Third Question is: Does God intend for me to be free? Free, as in so free that I can surprise God, that I can do some thing, create some thing, some idea, that God has neither thought of nor done? For it to be otherwise would mean that I am a mere computer doomed to follow a prearranged and previously imposed program over which I have neither say nor control.

I view attempts to determine precisely when, where, what, how, or why, God created as futile. These questions and their answers have meaning only with respect to the Creator. For created beings, it must suffice to ponder, appreciate, and creatively describe and explain, the observable consequences of God’s having created.

Discovering God in the light

It seems to me that to look for God in those aspects of Creation for which we lack satisfactory explanation is to make a major mistake. Better that we find the character and attributes of God in the parts of the created world we think we know and understand the most, those for which we have the best observations and the most complete explanations and descriptions. Better that we discover God in light rather than look for him in shadow.

The act of Creating always imbues created beings with significant properties that are inherently and inevitably shared by Creator with the created. For humans we refer to these as the “Image of God in Man,” identified here as freedom, love, creativity, a sense of beauty, curiosity and intelligence, and even a sense of humor.

It seems to me that beginning at the top, deciding first what I believe about God and the relationship between God and humans as described earlier, then working down—suspending the less important and more detailed beliefs from that framework—gives me two big advantages. The first is that nothing I learn from either science or history can jeopardize my starting point. The second is that it is much easier to repair, replace, rearrange, and re-suspend the details when the need arises. My “top-down” frame­­work can not collapse catastrophically because it depends on nothing below. For me that is “getting it right.” 

Bob Wonderly is a retired software engineer and database and computing consultant. He holds an M.A. in mathematics from the University of North Carolina.