Someone thought up 17 reasons as to “Why God Never Received a PhD.” While my initial thought was “who would award it to Him?” here are my responses to each point. One can easily see how well the objector did his research--and most likely will not get a PhD, either:
1. “He had only one major publication.” This is like saying a Library only has one book. There are sixty-six books of the Bible, each “published” over the course of time.
2. “It was in Hebrew.” There are doctoral students who do publish dissertations in languages other than English. (I can’t believe I actually had to mention this).
3. “It had no references.” What is one to do with Ancient Near Eastern law code (such as “the goring ox” law) and the other books mentioned in the books of Kings and Chronicles?
4. “It wasn’t published in a refereed journal.” The quotations of scripture in the works of early Christian writers alone are so extensive that the New Testament can be reconstructed without use of any actual manuscripts (over 32,000 citations of the New Testament are recorded before the Council of Nicea, in 325 A.D.)
5. “Some doubt he even wrote it himself.” The burden of proof lies on the objector in light of the internal evidence alone.
6. “It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?” Do you mean aside from holding everything together and ordering everything by His direct and permissive will?
7. “His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.” How, and compared to whom?
8. “The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.” Perhaps is unfair that nature does not have flasks of pure ingredients to pour out each in each step of process; that a real primeval pond has no screen to protect fragile amino acids from destructive wavelengths of sunlight; that nature is not equipped with traps to protect compounds from others. All that’s left for Science is to provide positive evidence that the origins of life requires a personal creator.
9. “He never applied to the ethics board for permission to use human subjects.” The question of ethics is answered by the human subjects themselves.
10. “When one experiment won’t went awry he tried to cover it by drowning his subjects.” If by definition an experiment is the verification of validity, then outcome confirmed the hypothesis--the soul that sins will die.
11. “When subjects didn’t behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample.” The subjects were given a choice and by that choice the subjects deleted themselves from the sample. God’s will is that subjects remain in the sample.
12. “He rarely came to class, just told students to read the book.” Perhaps if the objector had actually read the book, he would learn the proximity of the teaching professor. Must he always be in the room for learning to take place?
13. “Some say he had his son teach the class.” What’s the point? Team teaching, guest lecturers and teachers aids are a feature of higher education.
14. “”He expelled his first two students for learning.” What was the lesson?
15. “Although there were only 10 requirements, most of his students failed his tests.” What grade did you get?
16. “His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountain top.” Wow. Sure you had the right office?
17. “No record of working well with colleagues.” It’s the other way around, actually. Take this list, for example . . .
