How firmly and how long should a meaningful idea hold? Once persuaded about an idea, to action, how difficult is it to change? If easy, why would serious persons work hard at learning, believing, or acting? If casual, one faces humility, even of accidental error. Without strong belief we would not act well in society, and certainly would miss God. Beliefs, even seeming wrong ones, are in their nature strong and motivating. They may or may not be correct.
What is ideal discipline with children? My mother was reared by a cotton farmer who believed that when a child was truant in any matter, he/she needed a whuppin. That is what she got. She carried that on to her children. I was often on the snapping end of a razor strop. She was encouraged to believe the firm ideas of John Watson’s teaching, in 1928, that children should be made independent, so to avoid too much mother love. His book on the psychological care of children became a best seller. But in 1946, Benjamin Spock authored the book that left it to parents to raise their children, largely as they felt it should be done, and let the children alone. He opposed spanking. Too late for me. After I had my own children I asked why she, with the kindness I saw in her, was so stern to spank her children so firmly. She answered: I didn’t really know what to do. I followed what was taught me at the time. I really don’t know when I was wrong and when I was right. I never doubted, even in these events, that my mother loved me.
We could carry onward in nearly every field we know anything about: in religion, in science, in government, ad infinitum. What is sound in one generation is rejected in the next. During my era it was felt that some drug usage was an individual matter, then illegal, and now is in limbo, and becoming legal. Age issues are imposed or taken away for driving, for some other permits, and currently under study for change, even return. Authorities are not always sure that their theories are sound, or which of several to use on any occasion. Since I completed my theological studies there have been new theories that displaced previous ones. During my formal education years the debate on Neo-orthodoxy was in full bloom. It now falls back a couple of dominant theories ago.
The controversy over creation and evolutionary theories has been strong since Darwin’s, Origin of the Species, 1859, was published. The first part of the debate was anti-evolutionist, from the scientists themselves. Louis Agassiz of Columbia University, a highly respected scientist resisted evolution. It was short of evidence. Persons of faith are presumed by many to be closed minded because of creation affirmation. Currently there is controversy in some science fields, especially between some young scientists and elder. Some elders are holding to concepts of their theories they feel are being threatened. New ideas suggest there will be striking shifts in theories that have become doctrines to some elder scientists. Currently there is tension in biology about Michael J. Behe, professor at Lehigh University, who has raised challenges about evolution and molecular biology. All this suggests that we need to be students of the creation careful about how we treat problems of knowing, and to recognize that there are sincere differences. Devout Christians know that beliefs about God have worked in lives. To use any theory to reduce that faith is, for us, to be found in facts about God and mankind. One may ask if substitutes for biblical faith have improved society. Have changes in theory advanced us? Are we getting better civilization than before, or understanding objectivity? (Students interested in human biology should review The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack by Ian Tattersall.) *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020