This is most (not all) of an IM essay written during the early years of this web site (2001 I think.) My children were up to their ears in Ham/Hovind videos and I was feeling very alone in my own reading of Genesis. Things are better now, though the seeds of young earth creationism have borne their inevitable fruit. Hopefully, it will encourage some of you to continue thinking about these issues.
The Roots of My Problem
I have been reading creationist materials since high school. I bought The Genesis Flood when I was a very young Christian. I was converted in a fundamentalist church that contained very few college educated members, but they were aware of the challenge posed by the teaching of evolution. Darwin’s theories were skewered and preached against, in traditional fundamentalist fashion, by preachers who had never read Darwin or sat through a college biology course.
Evolution held a particular fear in my family and church. My parents were uneducated, but they warned me about the dangers I would face if I went to a school that taught evolution. When I took my college science classes, the professors were aware that many of us came from such backgrounds, and at least my teachers, took great care in separating their teaching of science from any critique of religion. My college biology professor was very cautious not to stir up controversy. In retrospect, I wish he had been more straightforward.
My views on the relationship of scripture and science were more affected by my college Bible classes than my science classes. I learned that scripture must be rightly interpreted. It must be understood within its world, and interpreted rightly in mine. If I came away with any suspicions that the young earth creationists might be wrong, it came from my developing an appreciation for Biblical interpretation, not from the Biology lab. Secular science didn’t turn my head. I learned that the people waving the Bible around weren’t necessarily treating it with the respect it deserved.
In seminary I continued my study of Biblical interpretation. I had been warned that liberal professors would teach me evolution and deny the historicity of miracles in the Bible. There were some professors out there that fit the stereotype, but they weren’t in the Bible department of my school. My Bible instructors taught me to respect the Biblical text by not imposing my interpretations and favorite hobby horses on the scriptures. What became clearer to me over my seminary career was that many of my evangelical and fundamentalist brethren were not willing to let the scriptures be what they were or to let them speak their own language.
Among the most valuable lessons I learned at seminary was to ask questions about the literary genre of the Biblical text. Literary criticism is among the most recent and helpful approaches to the Bible, and I don’t claim to be an expert. But I did come to appreciate that identifying a text as history, poetry, song, drama, parable or epistle was essential in allowing that text to “play by its own rules.” This had tremendous influence on my approach to the issues of young earth creationism, and continues to be the primary reason that I cannot accept their reading of Genesis.
The Ham Hermeneutic
One of the most well known creationist communicators is Ken Ham, an Australian school teacher whose humor and communication skills have served the cause of creationism well. His ministry “Answers in Genesis” is heard around the world. I’ve heard a lot of Ham’s stuff on tape and videos. I’ve read several of his books. In fact, I show my students an overview of Genesis 1 by Ham to demonstrate how creationists approach the Biblical text. Without being disrespectful, I have to say that I am always left uneasy by Ham’s approach to the Bible.
Ham loves the Bible and believes it is utterly truthful. He is unswervingly committed to the Bible as the Word of God and as divinely inspired. He is, however, primarily a scientist and an educator. Not a Biblical scholar. I do not believe he knows the Biblical languages. He shows little interest in Genesis as a literary text. His teaching is on Genesis as a scientific text.
One of Ham’s favorite laugh lines is suggesting students wait until a professor makes some claim about evolution or “millions of years” (a favorite Ham line) and then ask the killer question. “Sir, were you there?” (Add Aussie accent.) After the professor says “No, but….” then the follow up is something like this: “Then why do you believe the words of men, who weren’t there and don’t know everything, instead of believing the Word of God, who was there and does know everything?”
I don’t want to disparage Ham’s question or his belief that the Bible reveals to us unique information we could not know otherwise. But Ham has completely run past the really important questions about how we read and understand Genesis 1. He is asserting that Genesis 1 is to be believed because God inspired it. I don’t know of any real contention about that subject among those of us who are not young earth creationists. But Ham assumes that anyone who doesn’t interpret Genesis exactly as he does is rejecting the Bible as truthful.
And how does Ham interpret Genesis? He believes it is a scientific description of creation; a detailed scientific description that answers specific scientific questions and rules out any theories that cannot be based upon statements in Genesis. I am perfectly at ease with Ham making this presupposition, but I disagree with it. I do not believe Genesis is written as scientific description, but as a theological (and prescientific) one.
Let Us Do Your Speaking For You
Young earth creationists have not only not won me over with their approach to the Biblical text, and they have impressed me less with their attitude towards those interpretations that differ with them. Young earth creationists win the award for factionalism, and some of their achievements have to be noted.
For example, any approach that rejects a less than 10,000 year old earth or the flood as the explanation for all visible topography and geology is not on the team. So advocates of intelligent design, who have written and spoken powerfully on the evidence for God in microbiology and astrophysics, are written off because they tend to accept the current scientific dating of the universe and the earth. Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe, significant voices in the intelligent design movement, are no better than Stephen Jay Gould or Carl Sagan to the young earthers. In fact, the entire Intelligent Design movement is ignored by the creationists. This is foolish. There is much common ground between these groups.
Some of the contentions of the young earthers seem, to a layman like me, somewhat far-fetched, like denying the existence of black holes or questioning the constancy of the speed of light, and the evidence cited for these positions is, to say the least, fringe or below the fringe. Yet young earthers feel that because these views must be accepted to keep the age of the earth less than 10,000 years,anyone who does not embrace these strange and unproven theories is rejecting the truthfulness of the Bible, even though such ideas are in no way related to any text in Genesis. I find their rejection of the speed of light and the measurability of the universe to be particularly troubling.
I have noted on several occasions the open hostility towards Hugh Ross, the Canadian astronomer who has written a number of books on Genesis and Science for Navpress and has an apologetics ministry based on answering scientific questions. Ross interprets Genesis differently than the young earthers, and basically affirms the standard picture of big-bang and an old, expanding universe. Ross is somewhat unique in his interpretations, and takes the text very literally, but to the young earthers, he is out of the ball park, because he does not assume/conclude the earth/universe is young.
This is a method of Biblical interpretation where a few questions will quickly determine where one stands. How old is the earth? Was there death before Adam? Do you believe in a world wide flood? Were there dinosaurs on the ark? Any number of these questions draw lines in the sand for the young earthers. I am sorry to say that I cannot think of any division in Christianity- Calvinist/Arminan, Catholic/Protestant, Pentecostal/Cessationist, Seeker/Traditional- where one side is more completely unlikely to appreciate the other position than this one.
Two issues particularly have bothered me. One is the young earth contention that there cannot be such a thing as theistic evolution. For the young earth movement, the teams seems to be young earthers versus atheistic evolutionists. But this is too simplistic. There are many theistic evolutionists in the diverse traditions of Christianity. We may disagree deeply on the evidence for macroevolution, particularly as it applies to human beings, or on various claim about the nature of the Bible, but to say that there is no such possible Christian position as theistic evolution is criminally inaccurate. (For example, the controversial life and work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin should be noted as a significant advocate of such a position. I did extensive research on the life of Charles Darwin during seminary, and Darwin himself was not an atheist, but a Deistic evolutionist.) Theistic evolution may have its problems, but in the opinion of serious confessional theologians, it does not deny anything essential to the Christian faith.
The other issue is the rejection of the astronomical evidence for the “Big Bang.” Christians like Fred Hereen and Hugh Ross have taken the evidence of the “Big Bang” and produced powerful arguments for the existence of God. I personally find the evidence compelling and exciting, and very helpful to students in understanding why faith in a creator God is not irrational. Yet the young earthers, fully committed to rejecting any evidence that might challenge their age of the earth, routinely equate the “Big Bang” with atheism. When I refer to the “Big Bang” and what we know about it from the Hubble telescope, I can count on at least one student asking me how I can believe in the “Big Bang” since that is what atheists believe? (Even my own children had to be reeducated on this point.)
Good men, like R.C. Sproul and J. Gresham Machen, are outside of the young earther’s definition of orthodoxy on this issue. The Presbyterian Church in America has been painfully divided over this issue, an issue that no creed or confession in classical orthodox Christendom has ever taken sides on. Even if I were impressed with the Biblical or scientific claims of the young earth position, I would hesitate to identify with a movement this uncharitable towards other Christians.
Literally Missing the Point
The young earth creationists believe that Genesis 1 is “literally” a description of creation. I do not. It is this simple disagreement that is the cornerstone of my objection. I believe that Genesis 1 is a prescientific description of Creation intended to accent how Yahweh’s relationship with the world stands in stark contrast to the Gods of other cultures, most likely those of Babylon. Textual and linguistic evidence convinces me that this chapter was written to be used in a liturgical (worship) setting, with poetic rhythms and responses understood as part of the text. It tells who made the universe in a poetic and prescientific way. It is beautiful, inspired and true as God’s Word.
Does it match up with scientific evidence? Who cares? Here I differ with Hugh Ross and the CRI writers. I do not believe science, history or archaeology of any kind establishes the truthfulness of the scripture in any way. Scripture is true by virtue of God speaking it. If God spoke poetry, or parable, or fiction or a prescientific description of creation, it is true without any verification by any human measurement whatsoever. The freedom of God in inspiration is not restricted to texts that can be interpreted “literally” by historical or scientific judges of other ages and cultures beyond the time the scriptures were written.
In my view, both the scientific establishment’s claims to debunk Genesis and the creationists claims to have established Genesis by way of relating the text to science are worthless. Utterly and completely worthless and I will freely admit to being bored the more I hear about it. I react to this much the same I react to people who run in with the Bible and the newspaper showing me how 666 is really the bar code on my credit card. (A theory which, by the way, creationist and KJV-only advocate Kent Hovind gives considerable credibility to.)
Does the Bible need to be authorized by scientists or current events to be true? What view of inspiration is it that puts the Bible on trial before the current scientific and historical models? Has anyone noticed what this obsession with literality does to the Bible itself?
The compliment that is paid to the Bible by those who say it is “literally” and scientifically true comes at the expense of an authentic and accurate understanding of the text. A simple illustration will show what I mean.
ESV Revelation 6:12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.
I do not believe the stars will fall to the earth. I don’t. I don’t believe stars are in the sky. I don’t believe the writer understood what stars are or how they operate or the distances involved. I think this is prescientific language, and it is meant to tell us truth in its own way. A simple illustration, but it clearly shows that literary purpose must come before “literal” interpretation.
Now if I insist on a literal interpretation of this verse as a way of saying it is true and inspired, I am not treating the text with reverence and respect. I may be well motivated, but I am damaging the text. My point gets across, but at the expense of the real meaning of the text as it was written and inspired.
In the same way, Genesis describes creation prescientifically, in the language and idioms of the time, with a theological purpose in mind. It speaks clearly and powerfully. Making this into a literal and “scientific” description as a condition of inspiration is wrong.
Am I treating Genesis as a special case? Are Ham and others correct that this is straightforward description and there is no reason for putting a literary “spin” on how I read the text? My objection is to saying what a “straightforward description” means in a text several thousand years old; a text from a specific culture with a particular purpose. I am not claiming any special insight into Genesis. I am simply saying that, in my opinion, Genesis was not written with reference to the questions or methods of modern science, and making its truthfulness depend on that is a misuse of the text.
Many other examples could be brought forth. (Ask what a literal interpretation of the vision of Jesus in Revelation 1 turns into?) The literary nature of a text can’t be overlooked or taken for granted. In my opinion, this is typical of the creationist approach to the Bible. It becomes a piece of evidence in a scientific discussion, and the text of scripture- particularly its literary distinctiveness- is largely ignored.
The Internet Monk Archives 
These are very interesting posts. I think we often see science and religion as mutually exclusive. Many of the founding fathers of science were men (and women) of faith. Why do we find ourselves more apt to want to adjust our religious beliefs to accommodate science when the scientific body of knowledge is very often in flux due to new discoveries or additional data on previous discoveries because new discoveries often change what we believe about the world we live in.
I see the tension between science and theology as a good thing. I also think that theology can transcend science but not visa versa.
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I’ve been told that the Earth used to point straight up (up in space means which direction again?), and that a globe of ice surrounded the world. Then God tilted us 23 degrees (I think that’s the figure), which melted the ice, caused the flood, and Bob’s your uncle.
And changed the year from 360 days to 365 and a fraction, and the month from 30 days to 28 and a fraction, and changed the water cycle from miraculous fog and dew rising from the oceans into rain and snow, and cut the human lifespan from 600+ years to 70…
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Very true; it’s difficult to get an education and continue to believe in a young earth. It happened to me; I was raised YEC, and went to find as much evidence to support it as possible. Instead, I realized 1) the evidence actually went the other way, and 2) enforcing presupposition by research is intellectually dishonest.
The second point was the killer, especially when combined with something the author above refers to: (FTA)
“Scripture is true by virtue of God speaking it.”
IE: “The Bible defines God, and God defines the Bible”. I’m pretty sure that’s tautological, but it is the fundamental foundation of much modern Christian faith.
In the end, it’s not possible to know something without at least one human experiencing it. Everything we know comes through own or someone else’s experience. It doesn’t matter if it’s a subjective religious revelation or an objective breakthrough in science; both are human experiences.
And in both cases, the only affirmation we have to our experiences is from the communities around us; faith communities in one sense and scientific communities in the other.
Once I realized that, religion lost its spell on me. I started to question my faith, and now I’m an atheist. In the end, a tautological definition of god was not sufficient…now I’m not sure if God can be defined in ANY way.
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Oh yes, your point:
It is easier to apply a label than it is to debate a point.
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As Nick Matzke eloquently articulates The definition of “intelligent design†*originated* by deleting “creationist†and its cognates, and inserting “intelligent designâ€, “design proponentsâ€, etc., from the book Of Pandas and People. The rest of the definition (and the text of the book it was in!!) remained exactly the same. It happened after the 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard decision.
So it REALLY WAS a “Global Replace String ‘Young Earth Creationism’ with String ‘Intelligent Design'” (nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean know what I mean)…
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This is actually a reply to both tildeb and Headless Unicorn Guy, but imonk won’t do comments past 3 deep.
I believe Sanford’s book was originally self-published, and later picked up by a Creation-based publisher. I don’t have any personal grudges against self-published books. I self-published my own book on computer science (Programming from the Ground Up) for largely the same reason – I was unable to find a publisher who wanted to publish it. However, self-publishing did not stop Princeton University from using it for several years. The key is the quality of the book, not on what governing committee says whether or not it is suitable for publication.
Human nature is just what it is – it isn’t a conspiracy theory. The same human nature that kept Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar’s ideas out of astrophysics for several decades (Eddington thought it was uncool, and he had enough clout to prevent other people who were sympathetic to his ideas to keep them out). For similar reasons as Sanford, Chandrasekhar spent most of his publishing efforts towards books rather than peer-review journals. It is the highest vanity that people think that scientists are a special class of people who are not prone to the same types of groupthink present in every other field.
And Chandrasekhar and Sanford aren’t the only two who push their work primarily through books. Blanden and Steele published their theories of somatic selection and germline feedback in the book Lamarck’s Signature in 1999. Only in the last few years has the scientific environment changed enough to allow their views in peer-reviewed journals, and even then only a few papers.
Lynn Margulis has often had her funding cut off for much the same reasons.
To say that in order for an idea to be scientific that it must pass through a select group of people or journals is simply silly, and the history of science shows us that over and over again good ideas get shot down in science (both journals and otherwise) simply because they are unpopular, and not because they are wrong.
If I remember correctly from Ruse’s “evolution wars”, the journal Evolution was established because certain scientists did not feel their papers were being given a proper hearing, and therefore made their own journal to publish them. There is nothing wrong with that, but apparently if someone you disagree with does that, it’s foul play.
There is no magic to peer review. The idea should stand or fall as an idea itself, not because some mystical priesthood deemed it worthy of their standards. Having a fixed set of avenues of publication is precisely the _cause_ of dogma, not its solution.
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I would love to have a much more detailed conversation with you about your thesis than this site will allow because it sounds very much like a “God did it” explanation used for a lack of knowledge since time immemorial. I suspect you mean much more than that and I would like to find out what. But in the meantime, I’ll make my point as quickly as quickly as I can.
Until the 15th century, Christian science was Aristotelian physics and Platomic ideology (a restructured dualism by its modern name, thanks to Descartes), but somewhat altered screaming and kicking at least as much by the natural physics that worked of a few large brained mammals like Copernicus and Galileo and Newton as by the natural philosophies of Descartes and Leibniz that empowered natural theology. To recast these philosophies as Intelligent Design has some merit but… to be more honest, let’s call ID what it was meant to be by those who created it: the proponents of those who represent the Discovery Institute and put its agenda to work. So let’s not mask ID as something it is really isn’t – natural theology – although I will admit that it could be categorized as such.
Intelligent Design is very much a20th century creature that attempts and fails as a Trojan Horse to get creationism into the science curriculum. The evidence is two simple words: cdesign proponentsists. As Nick Matzke eloquently articulates The definition of “intelligent design†*originated* by deleting “creationist†and its cognates, and inserting “intelligent designâ€, “design proponentsâ€, etc., from the book Of Pandas and People. The rest of the definition (and the text of the book it was in!!) remained exactly the same. It happened after the 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard decision.
You may choose to think of ID as a new label on an old idea, but unless you can convince those who use the term in its modern form to redefine the antiquated idea of natural theology, then let’s stick to using language we can both understand.
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He published a book containing the science behind it… — Jonathan
Through which publisher? I don’t recognize the “ILN” listed on the Amazon.com link — who are they? If a publishing arm for, say, the Creation Science Institute, that would sort of reduce its credibility outside of the Kentucky Creation Museum.
If by “make it available for peer review†you mean, “submit it to people who would reject it without reading and considering itâ€, then you are correct, he did not submit his paper discussing why he believes evolution to be false to the peer review of evolutionary journals. What sane person would? — Jonathan
Question: How does this differ from the Conspiracy Mindset you find in all those crackpot books? You know the ones I mean — self/vanity-published because of Persecution by The Vast Conspiracy? The ones with “What THEY Don’t Want You To Know!” ?
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Or maybe John was just using imagery of Cosmic Catastrophe to make his point.
Solar Eclipse (Sun will turn black), Lunar Eclipse (Moon will turn to blood), Volcanic Vents (lakes of fire), all imagery to describe the indescribable. All images of Cosmic Catastrophe.
Perhaps they are shooting stars, as in the earth going thru a meteor shower or comet(s) trail… John could actually see this cataclysmic event unfolding in a vision.
Be careful about going down that particular road. That’s the filter Hal Lindsay used with Late Great Planet Earth — that God showed John a movie of 20th Century events and John described it as best he could. That resulted in the Plague of Demon Locusts “really” being helicopter gunships packing chemical weapons and piloted by long-haired bearded hippies. And ALL the plagues of Revelation being nuclear weapons effects described by a 1st-Century primitive, resulting in the “Christians For Nuclear War” attitude (or at least indifference — after all, The Rapture WILL beam us up as the first warheads cut atmo over their targets; It Is Written!
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Or “the Bible Says What I Say It Says Because I can Force My Will/Interpretation On You!”, whether by Inquisition or Jihad.
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No, Tildeb, Intelligent Design originally meant what used to be called “Natural Theology”, a philosophical foundation of science that empowered Western Science from the 16th to 19th Centuries: The idea that God is reflected in His Creation. And that God is one and constant, and His creation should reflect this consistency — 2+2 is NOT going to =4 one moment and =5 the next, water isn’t going to flow downhill one moment and uphill the next (regardless of what Islamic theology says). And that God is understandable (at least to a point) and His creation should also be understandable — no “God Saith!” Mystagogery. Perceived truth as a subset of God’s Truth, not a completely-separate set.
THAT Is what Intelligent Design originally meant — a philosophical foundation/justification for science rather than a science itself, heir to a centuries-old philosophical/scientific tradition.
Then the YECs HIJACKED the name, and the result is what you’re talking about:
Intelligent Design (nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean know what I mean), the latest coat of camouflage paint for Young Earth Creationism Uber Alles and NOTHING more.
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Thanks for the mini Hebrew lesson, Jonathan. It’s nice to have a clearer understanding.
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Note that evolutionary theory has nothing to do with the origin of life or the Big Bang. By all means hold to the beliefs you find beautiful and meaningful. It is very refreshing to read that believers can appreciate science and its truth values without taking a stand against knowledge. Thank you, TeeDee. You help restore my faith in others.
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Intelligent Design is not science. It is creationism. Because something has design does not mean that there must be a supernatural designer.
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Just to point out to you both —
Hebrew is very VERY vague with tenses. They only have two real tenses – the perfect and the imperfect. And then two kind-of tenses – the vav-consecutive and the vav-conversive (these share spellings with the perfect and the imperfect, but add an “and” at the front). In any case, English speakers concentrate on tenses. Hebrew speakers don’t. The basic form of the verb is in fact “simple past tense” (vav-consecutive), but Hebrew doesn’t even have a pluperfect that English speakers have. It is sometimes signalled by sticking a perfect verb in the middle of a string of vav-consecutives, but really it is usually just determined by context. For instance, the narrative in Isaiah 39:1 uses the same verb form for hearing that Hezekiah had been sick and recovered.
Therefore, whether or not you interpret the verb as pluperfect or simple past is based more on your suppositions than on what the text says.
I would say that the more likely idea would be that the author in Genesis 2 was not trying to make a temporal statement, but instead was describing the context in which the action was happening. In such a case, _any_ English tense would be overly-specific, and therefore the choice of which to use would be based on the English-speaker’s overall understanding of the text, and not of the grammar itself.
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Thank you Michael! I am so tired of Christians making evolution that cause of every ill that is in the world. I can perfectly well believe that the Genesis creation story is not a scientific representation of creation and still believe that Jesus really did walk the earth, and that the Bible is divinely inspired. But I don’t say that much for fear of being sent packing by fellow church members. The Bible is so rich, ancient, and beautiful, I can’t bring myself to believe that one can, or is supposed to, read it like a textbook.
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I appreciated this post. I agree that at times Hugh Ross’s interpretations seem a bit idiosyncratic, but that’s far from the same as saying that his contributions have no value. In fact, they have a great deal of value.
As for the comments so far, I think that everyone who discusses evolution would benefit from taking more care to separate out the threads tangled in that term. These include the ideas that (1) the earth is old, (2) some fossil and biological evidence suggests that living things have branched off from common ancestors, (3) everything came about by accident and natural selection with no designing intelligence, (4) macro-evolution is just micro-evolution repeated over billions of years, (5) God’s signature in the domain of biology is undetectable–either because God does not exist, because God prefers to be undetectable, or because God’s design was limited to carefully setting up the initial conditions (and the Big Bang was the ultimate trick billiards shot). Some of those ideas can be reconciled with the God of the Bible and some just can’t.
Believe that design in nature is undetectable? Read Stephen Meyer’s new book “Signature in the Cell.”
Believe that chance and natural selection can create significant new features without intelligent design? Read Michael Behe’s “The Edge of Evolution.”
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Come on, Jonathan; you’re pulling my leg, right?
Proper peer review occurs before publishing the findings! That’s the whole point. Writing a book is not the same process. It is a shortcut that undermines the very science its author purports to want to get out to the public. As for the accounting model, it simply doesn’t work, hence my comment about the model’s accuracy for something like the dying out of E. coli, which obviously isn’t true. Perhaps if he had offered the model for proper peer review he would have found out where he went wrong and we would have a better model today. Unfortunately, his assumptions are found to be wanting. His main assumption is that there is no evidence for the operation of positive selection (selection for beneficial mutations) in humans. But there is. And that’s why genetic entropy is wrong. If he had submitted his ideas for proper peer review that refuted with strong evidence his central hypothesis (to get your motor running, see Johnson et al. (2001), Sabeti et al. (2002), Nielsen et al. (2005), Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium (2005), and Voigt et al. (2006)) there would have been no book and the accounting program would have been properly tested for validity to predict accurately in the real world.
This process is not meant to discredit creationism (or, as you write,to “submit it to people who would reject it without reading and considering it, which is just a really weird complaint against the scientific community) but test its scientific claims for validity. In other words, does Sandford’s model work? This is not a question of belief or preference; it is strictly a method of inquiry that continues to give us knowledge. That’s why the proper peer review process is important and not to be circumvented by those who take the shortcut and appeal to certain audience of consumers with a product that is not scientifically endorsed by peers.
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There are several days of good discussion about this and similar issues at Lamb and Lion ministries. You can go forward and backward in the blog to see various issues discussed regarding evolution. The man being interviewed has changed his view from evolution to creation.
http://www.lamblion.us/2009/10/theistic-evolution-gap-in-logic.html
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What do you mean he hasn’t made it “available for peer review”? He published a book containing the science behind it, wrote a state-of-the-art open-source mendelian genetics program demonstrating what he wrote, and then wrote several different papers in a variety of journals discussing the program and its results.
If by “make it available for peer review” you mean, “submit it to people who would reject it without reading and considering it”, then you are correct, he did not submit his paper discussing why he believes evolution to be false to the peer review of evolutionary journals. What sane person would?
Now, I, too, have reservations about the degree of what Sanford claims, and have written why I don’t think it is the whole story. But that is not surprising – scientists are frequently wrong (or, as I believe in Sanford’s case, partially wrong), and there is nothing wrong with that.
And, of course, nothing in that deters from what I was pointing out – that Sanford was a respected biologist who believed in evolution and later became a YEC.
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Only engineers (people who love logic and philosophy)? Seems to me that most large groups have across section of people who think wacky thoughts. But engineers in particular need their science to work; they depend on all the necessary bits and parts to work, and those that don’t simply fall down or blow up or fail. In other words, the evidence that something is wrong becomes evident to an engineer pretty quickly.
As for logicians and philosophers who build (like an engineer) an argument, I think we can learn a lot just how demanding good thinking is.
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Sanford’s central reason for arguing against evolution is his notion of something called genetic entropy. He has not made the science behind it available for peer review – very odd considering he knows that is how you make meaningful scientific contributions – but has offered through his book the equation that should have E coli dead and gone four times a year if it were true. Perhaps there are supporters of Sanford who think God recreates E coli four times a year, but for the rest of the scinetific community, the algorithm is wrong. Along with good evidence that mutations in small populations like humans are almost always neutral, as well as beneficial, Sanford’s scientific criticism of evolution is flawed. But even if it were true, it wouldn’t make the world or its biomass any younger. Sanford was highly respected as a scientist until he made this u-turn in professionalism and failed to provide good evidence for his young earth beliefs.
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“Also, please name a non-YEC scientist that believes the earth is 6,000-10,000 years ”
I don’t understand the question. If a scientist believes the earth is 6,000-10,000 years old, doesn’t that by definition make them young earth?
However, I can point to some scientists who believe in an old earth but a young biosphere, such as Ariel Roth and Art Chadwick (Chadwick is a dinosaur paleontologist who has done some really cool stuff with high-resolution GPS mapping of fossil dig sites).
There are also scientists who started out as evolutionists who eventually became YECs, such as John Sanford, who co-invented the process (known as biolistics) which created most commercial transgenic crops today.
But again, I’m not sure if either of those are what you are looking for, because, as I said, I didn’t understand your question.
Also, is Joel Hunter’s documentation of the Sproul claim sufficient or do I need to produce anything additional?
Jon
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I think Jonathan Bartlett is correct.
1. In his guide to the Westminster Confession called Truths We Confess, he states on pp 127-8 that, “For most of my teaching career, I considered the ‘framework hypothesis’ to be a possibility. But I have now changed my mind. I now hold to a literal six-day creation. Genesis says that God created the universe and everything in it in six twenty-four-hour periods. According to the Reformation hermeneutic, the first option is to follow the plain sense of the text. One must do a great deal of hermeneutical gymnastics to escape the plain meaning of Genesis 1 to 2. The confession makes it a point of faith that God created the world in the space of six days.”
Since he rejects alternative creationist theories which allow for OEC (pp 120 ff), he’s left with YEC.
2. Doug Phillips of the Vision Forum states, “When I ran into Dr. R.C. Sproul at a conference in Nashville earlier this year, I asked him to share the reasons for his relatively recent conversion to six-day creationism. His answer was simple: ‘Doug Kelly’s Creation and Change.’ (published 2003).”
3. I’ve not confirmed this, but there’s allegedly an MP3 of a talk/sermon by Sproul called “Days of Genesis.”
4. Circumstantial evidence: Ligonier sells Macarthur’s awful YEC book The Battle for the Beginning.
Strangely, however, he thinks geocentrism is both bad science and bad biblical exegesis.
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This is the whole problem with “the Bible is literally true” as a philosophy: it dissolves pretty rapidly into hand-wringing and “the Bible isn’t saying what it’s obviously saying.. unless MAYBE “
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I’ve found that engineers (people who love logic and philosophy) often have the most amazing ability to make the oddest old anykinds of proofs and rationalizations ‘fit together’ into a system that bears enough weight for their purposes.
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MOD NOTE: Produce documentation that Sproul believes in YEC or I’m going to edit this comment.
Also, please name a non-YEC scientist that believes the earth is 6,000-10,000 years old.
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For those who follow the evidence about design through evolutionary processes, there really is an incompatibility between belief in creationism and understanding common ancestry. That doesn’t make those who understand the chain of overwhelming evidence atheists – new or otherwise – nor their explanations ‘rants.’ But it is very frustrating to have people reject knowledge if it competes with cherished beliefs. Nor is it reasonable to mitigate what we do know with what we choose to believe. The onus is on each of us to make what we can believe to legitimately fit seamlessly with what we know. There is no middle ground. Evolutionary theory contains every fact we know about ancestry and offers us a framework that continues to work in every area of biological knowledge applied in our lives today. Religious beliefs that compete with this understanding need to be reviewed and updated with something better than a refusal to acknowledge evolution’s truth value based on mutually supportive comprehensive evidence that works.
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“However, the belief that evolution provides the variety and design of all life (especially by random chance) takes more ‘faith’ than my little brain can handle.â€
You could if you understood that evolution is highly designed and not random chance. The evidence for this design comes not from belief but from what has lived before and produced offspring.
For example, you exhibit some measure of variation from your parents and contain within your DNA many mutations (very slight in your overall ‘design’) from the sum total inherited. It requires no faith or astounding belief on my part to hold to the opinion that there is much good evidence that you are a still a product of your mother and father in spite of these genetic differences and mutations. Evolutionary theory does indeed provide a framework for understanding your current ‘design’ from your parents’ ‘design’. Like you from them, they inherited almost their entire ‘design from their parents. This is quite reasonable and I suspect your “little brain” is more than capable of following this line of thinking without having to make huge leaps of faith. What works linking you to your parents also works if we go back another generation and another. If we are missing particular generations or even many, we can still determine your links. When you go back a few dozen, a hundred, a thousand, a million generations, we begin to see on a species level how your biological inheritance today comes through this chain and not from some other. Your genetic code in each and every cell in your body – some 150 million cells – contains evidence of this chain of ancestry. And that’s when we find startling evidence that certain parts – significant chunks – of your genetic code also appear in other species genetic codes. It is very much like tracing the inheritance from a leaf tip back through the leaf to its twig, the twig to its branch, the branch to the tree, the tree to its forest, and so on. If you look at a tiny bit of leaf and the tree from which we presume it came, we see obvious physiological differences between the two. For some people, they think that to show why one comes from the other requires a remarkable amount of belief similar to the mount necessary to believe a sound in the night must belong to Captain Jack’s ghost. These folk don’t understand the connection between leaf and tree that is apparent to others who first come to understand the evidence that links this leaf to that tree through understanding the tree’s life cycle and reproduction, how leaves are the mechanism for the tree to create energy from sunlight, how it makes seeds of some kind to regenerate its kind, and so on. Establishing and understanding the link between leaf and tree is not a matter of belief; it is a matter of knowledge. A yes, your brain is perfectly capable of learning all about biological design without having to believe in Captain Jack’s ghost.
For those who take the time and make the effort to understand evolutionary theory, they will enjoy an astounding journey of discovery and appreciate anew the awe-inspiring power of life to design itself over a great deal of time and thrive in so many varieties. Welcome to biology. Its study is richly rewarding and far more satisfying than simple belief in the necessity for some divine creation to explain your common ancestry.
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Tremper Longman III, “how to interpret Genesis”
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IM said,
I do not believe the stars will fall to the earth. I don’t. I don’t believe stars are in the sky. I don’t believe the writer understood what stars are or how they operate or the distances involved. I think this is prescientific language, and it is meant to tell us truth in its own way. A simple illustration, but it clearly shows that literary purpose must come before “literal†interpretation
Perhaps they are shooting stars, as in the earth going thru a meteor shower or comet(s) trail. maybe that is the cleansing of the earth in divne judgement. All to say we really do not know what is meant. John could actually see this cataclysmic event unfolding in a vision
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I think you are putting too much emphasis on Genesis 1. The real core of Young-Earth Creationism comes from Genesis 6-9. Young-Earth Creationism would actually work just as well if the Bible left out Genesis 1. I know Ken Ham puts a lot of emphasis on Genesis 1 – and there is reason for that – but this article acts like YEC rises or falls on Genesis 1. The fact is that modern Young-Earth Creationism is much more founded on Genesis 6-9 than on Genesis 1.
Likewise, this is also the subject of the prophecy in 2 Peter 3:3-7. Scoffers will come and deny that the world perished with the flood. And that is in fact what is happening now. The difference between YEC and OEC or Theistic Evolution is that YEC affirms, along with 2 Peter 3, that the world perished with the flood.
To look at YEC and not talk about the flood is to miss the point entirely.
Also, just to point out, R.C. Sproul changed his position and is now a Young Earth Creationist. [MOD: See comment below. Document this or it will be deleted.]
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Another good one for me in my studies has been
Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth by Newman and Eckelmann.
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It seems to me that there is a good bit of commentary and books on Genesis 1, but less on Genesis 2-3. I have read and appreciated Conrad Hyers’ book “The Meaning of Creation.” Anyone have a further suggestion for a commentary or other writings on Gen. 2-3 that addresses questions of mythology and theistic evolution?
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Tim, if you look a little closer, you will find that “had made,” which in English is indeed past perfect, is the NIV’s interpretation of a Hebrew past tense. (I’m no Hebrew scholar, but I think from my readings of others that this is true; double check me, though.) Look at other translations and you will find the simple phrase “made”. It seems to me that the NIV has inserted “had” based on their assumption that there is a single creation account in Genesis 1-2.
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Darrell Falk wrote a great book called “Coming To Peace With Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology,” but it focuses heavily on the scientific aspect of the debate. There is also Gordon Glover’s book “Beyond the Firmament” and Kenneth Miller’s “Finding Darwin’s God.” I enjoyed Falk the best.
On my goodreads reading list, I have “Creation or Evolution: Do We Have To Choose?” by Denis Alexander and “Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith” by Daniel Harrell.
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Tim, about your “of the field” statements:
The phrase “of the field” does NOT mean farmed, planted, cultivated, domesticated, or things like that. It is a generic phrase that refers to the earth. It’s a phrase that, when used in this way (plant/lily/beast/gazelle/grass/tree of the field) is almost always used in poetic or grand phrases.
The Bible also uses the same phrase “of the field” when referring to things that are definitely NOT part of the cultivated/farmed/planted/domesticated groups of things. Lilies, gazelle, and wild beasts are some of those things that are called “of the field” but are most definitely not cultivated by man.
Sometimes the things it refers to are found in farmed fields. Sometimes they are contrasted with things from the mountains, so they just mean non-mountain. Sometimes they refer to all the animals on earth.
The phrase “of the fields” in this is most certainly not strictly limited to meaning something like “cultivated”. In fact in Genesis 2:20, the phrase “beasts of the field” is specifically separate from the concept of livestock. In Genesis 2:19, “all the beasts of the field” is paired with “all the birds of the air” to refer to everything on the ground and everything in the air. That’s a pretty solid indicator that just a couple verses earlier, in Genesis 2:5, the meaning of “of the field” didn’t suddenly shift to mean just the cultivated plants. Just like Genesis 2:19-20 uses “of the field” to refer to everything, so does “of the field” in Gen 2:5 refer to everything, and so there is an “out of order” to the Creation accounts.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_hypothesis
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There’s also a book that I think is called “4 Views on Creation.” It presents each side in the words of a proponent of each side. Great for getting an introduction to the major views.
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Did anyone else watch “Bones” last night? A character on the show who is Muslim is asked how he can believe in Allah and still be a scientist. Where is this coming from? I really liked the answer: basically, that there is no conflict between science and faith, and that science struggles to explain many aspects of creation. It was very tasteful. It seems that not everyone is buying into the new atheist rants about a fundamental conflict between faith and science.
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Jim,
I think of God creating the universe using the Big Bang and Evolution as his tools. He not only starts the process as someone noted, but he also inhabits the process and sees it through.
If my son were to ask me how he or the tree in our front yard came to exist, I could tell him about the scientific process of how sperm and egg unite to form a zygote which develops over ten or so months into a human, or for a tree, what happens when a seed is placed in the ground. But I could also reply that God designed and made both him and the tree. Both explanations are true. The latter deals with the ultimate cause, and the former with the processes he uses.
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“However, the belief that evolution provides the variety and design of all life (especially by random chance) takes more ‘faith’ than my little brain can handle.”
I think that’s where the theory of evolution goes beyond science and postulates the reason behind the action. It’s one thing to say that life evolved, but it’s quite another to state the reason behind it. Science can help explain the observable universe, but can never go beyond the observable. So your ‘creator’ is either God or Chance.
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iMonk’s thoughts are well written and deserve a full rebuttal, but in the space of ‘comments’ I can only respond to tmn6’s assertion that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 contain “two different sequences of creation.” I initially assumed he might be ‘on-to-something’ so I quickly looked up Gen 1 and 2 via ‘Bible-Gateway.com’ and merely used two browser tabs to separately list out the ‘sequences’ a lay-reader might get from reading the two chapters separately. (which according to iMonk is not fair to the text, but we’ll follow tmn6’s thought experiment anyhow.)
This is the list I came up with (from the NIV, but any translation would do, even the Hebrew.)
Chapter 1:
1st Day: Space/time/matter created (probably at zero energy as there is no light yet.) and likely the sphere of the earth itself. Light is created (perhaps in the same instant as the previous.) Light is electromagnetic radiation or ‘heat.’ That heat is then separated into ‘hotter places’ and ‘colder’ places. (i.e. light places and dark places.) in ‘geek’ terms this would mean some some matter is made hot, while some of it is left cold. This could mean the inside of the earth is heated, and much of the universe is left as ‘dark matter.’ (in the thermodynamics sense, not the astrophysics sense, though related in some ways.)
On the same day (or simultaneously) the earth is also rotating on it’s axis.
2nd day: the Atmosphere is ‘created’ or more precisely, ‘pulled’ up and out of the elements of the existing earth sphere. (judging from the language.)
3rd day: Continents uplifted, and Plants created (probably a two step process.)
4th day: Sun-Moon-Stars created (formed) and earth begins to orbit the Sun.
5th day: Sea-creatures and Birds created.
6th day: Land Animals created, and Man created.
Chapter 2:
7th Day: God quit creating. (i.e. no more new stuff coming into existence out of nothing by His Word.
No “shrub of the fields” nor “plants of the field” yet because of no farmers yet to do any farming. Note the obvious ‘of-the-fields’ in both descriptions to indicate a different situation then the ‘wild’ stuff God created on day 3.
The we see that God ‘had planted a garden’ (on day 3) so that Man could be made to eat from there without a farm. (makes sense after the previous paragraph.)
Now we see some details of Day 6. “had made” [past-perfect tense] the ‘Beasts of the Field’ (like Dogs and Cats, and Cows) are paraded before Adam, as well as the Avian types, so that Adam would never forget (even in the hard times) that Eve was a BLESSING and not a curse. Dog might be ‘man’s best friend” but Woman is Man’s complimentary ‘puzzle piece’ and ‘help-mate’ Much like God is Man’s Help-mate in salvation. Now we have a ‘zoomed-in’ account of Day 6 competed at verse 25.
It seems rather plain that ‘tmn6’ must be bringing some pretty shallow reading to get their “two different sequences of creation,” problem. I think we should all take iMonk’s advice about being more ‘true’ and astute about what is actually written, and if God did direct those words to be written (like the rest of the Bible,) then God is not sloppy, and He meant each word that is there, and any truth seeker reading any translation could easily get a pretty correct idea if they were not pre-biased by some other extra-biblical assumptions, so that all will be ‘with-out’ excuse, in at least keeping the matter of Salvation by Grace untainted by compromise. [Death before Adam’s sin really undermines any meaning of Jesus’ own words and resurrection. Just a fact.]
To iMonk: you are wrestling with epistemology. I recommend you go study some from the likes of J.P. Morland, or William Lane Craig.
For full disclosure, I am an engineer who loves logic, philosophy, science, and critical thinking. I am more persuaded to be a ‘young-earther’ by Geology, Modern-physics, and Archeology, then by scripture alone. Natural ‘revelation’ is extremely powerful for the intellectually honest, so I fully support the ID movement, even if just for academic freedom principles alone!
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I second “The Language of God” by Francis Collins. Wonderful book.
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wow, I bet you don’t go far without your Kevlar vest…..enjoyed the post: you seem so sane and composed for a YEC’er…….are you medicated ??
Blessings on your/our evolution toward Jesus-shaped-ness
Greg R
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I am so impressed with your blog and look forward to reading more. I am a little bit unusual in that I am a young earth guy- but have great love for Hugh Ross and the ID movement.
I personally witnessed a group of Bible teachers give Ross a very hostile reception at a school where I was teaching.
The ‘big-bang’ observation is huge for the theists.
The mechanism of evolution is very observable and stands up to inquiry.
However, the belief that evolution provides the variety and design of all life (especially by random chance) takes more ‘faith’ than my little brain can handle.
I also doubt we have a good grasp on ‘time’ and I still think we interpret the data correctly without taking into account an already functioning universe that appears older than it is.
A good friend of mine thinks that this makes God look deceptive, but I believe we need to keep both revelations open to interpret one another- the revelation of creation and the revelation of Scripture do not hurt one another, they balance one another.
The reason Charles Hodge rejected the “Origin of the Species” was not evolution, but godless chance with no directive from “God”.
So it sounds naive to say, “this is how God has presented it” and I will accept it until faith becomes sight.
Dawkins would say that makes me lazy and satisfied with not knowing.
At the same time I applaud the work by theistic scientists and their high view of Scripture.
My prayer is that the prejudice in the area of biology (the other scientific disciplines are fine with God) will give allowance for a creator in the education of our youth. I truly believe that that ID and macro-evolutionary theory carry the same ‘evidence’ and logical application.
So I believe in genetics, slight, successive variations in species- I believe that time is relative (God time, earth time, relative time)- I believe the earth is younger than it appears- and I accept the Genesis record as it stands- I love scientific discovery- and most of all I love the gospel- the good news of salvation by grace through faith- purchased by the Son of God.
This gets me shot from both sides- which feels like I am close to the truth.
Blessings!
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One of our associate pastors was very keen on Francis Collins’ “The Language of God”. I’ve yet to read it, but it’s on the list.
pax
Greg R
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Maybe someone can give me some reading suggestions. I am a looking for a few books that intelligently discuss the possibility of evolution from a Christian perspective or at least a non-young earth perspective.
Thanks
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While I do enjoy playing around with this issue intellectually and coming up with rational or philosophical possibilities, I’m starting to doubt that there is a rational way to completely reconcile scripture with science — not in our present state of reality, anyway.
To borrow a principle from Jesus, maybe we should just render unto science what pertains to science and render unto faith what pertains to faith — and stop trying to fit the square peg of science and the round peg of scripture-based faith into the same hole in our brains. And if that requires some doublethink or embracing a paradox we cannot fully rationalize, then I think the preservation of both faith and science is more than worth it. After all, human faith in God won’t put a sattelite in orbit, and the application of physics will never establish a loving relationship between humans and their Creator.
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I’m assuming he means “pre-enlightenment” by that term.
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Not difficult to find former young-earth creationists since the invention of the internet.
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The problem isn’t that YEC and fundamentalist folks are unscientific but that they may not be able think outside predefined answers.
Dumb Ox, I just got off the phone with someone who used almost the exact same words. He mentioned an experience with a pin-the-tail-on-The-Antichrist type and how the guy “was Born-Again, unable to think outside the box. And with him, The Box was called The Bible.” Subject was trouble with the economy. Guy linked all of it into Fulfillment of End Time Prophecy; my informant played “make his head explode” by “going outside the box” with some classic Erich von Daniken.
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I’m taking just a bit of issue with your usage of the term “pre-scientific.” Somewhat implies that no type of scientific understanding could have existed in Egyptian/Hebrew times, in comparison to ours. This strikes me as a bit of hubris and temporal/cultural arrogance on our part. Perhaps some explanation of how you use the term might have been more helpful.
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Maybe that is what IMonk meant. I guess you’d have to ask him. I don’t read that in what he wrote, but I certainly could be misreading him.
I see it speaking to the (what I’ve found to be) typical, layman YEC view that actively rejects much of science. There are a few YEC people that I very highly respect for their honesty with science, but by and large, the YEC population does seem to reject science as being against the Bible, and hold that the only valid view of scripture is a 6000/6/24 creation. With that sort of approach, the only way Nicki can be a Christian is to reject science in the way IMonk described.
That’s not quite the same as saying Christians need to be OEC though. Just that if they believe the Bible truly does require a 6000/6/24 creation, that they not reject science.
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Peoples, the plural of example is not DATA. Examples have their purposes, but they aren’t something on which to base debate.
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It’s funny. I worked for a large aerospace company in the ’90s as well. (I am an aerospace engineer by education and by vocation early on in my career.) I hate to burst your bubble, but had you shown this series in my company, yes you would have had “more engineers showing up than you knew what to do with” – 95% of them being there for the comedic value of the experience.
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Have you read the executive summary of the last UN ICC panel or whatever it was? It’s aimed at the general populace and a very easy read. I was on the fence about global warming until I looked into it a few years ago and said, huh, *that’s* why there’s no debate among scientists over it…
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Yeah, but that’s the same as saying “We won’t take Genesis 1 literally because we know now it’s not literally accurate. Therefore, we say it’s metaphorical.”
That’s not addressing Gary’s argument that other parts of the Bible indicate that Genesis was originally taken literally. I thought you had pointers in other entries to arguments that Genesis’ style etc. indicated it was not ever taken literally (except by Calvin and Luther… ;)?
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One of the reasons I broke from the YEC camp was when I read the first two chapters of Genesis and realized that they told two different stories of creation. I did this with a youth group once. I divided them into two groups. I asked one group to read Genesis chapter 1 and list the order several things were created in. I asked the other group to read Genesis chapter 2 and list the order the same things were created in. Lo and behold, as I already knew, the two groups came up with two different sequences of creation.
I admit it’s somewhat fun listening to Young Earthers try to force the sequence of chapter 1 into chapter 2. I remember listening to Kent Hovind debate Hugh Ross once and he said if you just handed someone the first chapter of Genesis and asked them to read it (and this person had never read it before) and then asked them how did creation take place, they would say that it took place in 6 days, not over millions or billions of years, unless they forced that reading (old earth) on the text. Fair enough. However, if you handed the same person chapter 2 of Genesis and asked them to read it, then asked them in what order the created things were created, that person would not give you the same order as Genesis chapter 1, unless they forced that reading on the text.
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Hello Michael
I appreciate this post. Your view that the Biblical text of Genesis was not meant to be a scientific treatise is echoed in a new book written by John H. Walton, “The Lost World of Genesis One”. Mr. Walton endeavors to show that language assumes a culture and is designed to communicate in that culture. The language of Genesis was designed to reach the minds of people within an ANE culture and their patterns of thinking. His main point is that the story of creation is “function oriented”. “If we try to turn it into modern cosmology, we are making the text say something that it never said.”
Just reading his Introduction and Proposition 1 is worth the price of the book. I learned of his book through a blog by Scot McKnight several months ago.
Thank you again for another instructive and intelligent post.
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dave, I see you’re quoting from ICR, but this is one of those topics where ICR has gotten really, REALLY off base. The genetic results from Woodward’s study were different from all known DNA, but it was also very close to human DNA in many regards. Either dinos had very human-like DNA, or there was some contamination in Woodward’s study.
Groups have tried to find more dino DNA in the area where Woodward acquired his bone fragments, but to no avail. People have tried to duplicate his work, and haven’t been able to do so.
I realize that’s not evidence pro or con for OEC or YEC. It’s just a mistake that happened.
Out of curiosity, is there some information on how you have come to 13021 years old? I’ve seen a lot of different Bible Chronologies, but 13021 is by far the oldest I’ve heard of. I think the oldest I remember was something like 5200 BC (roughly 7200 years old). Doubling the length of the Biblical genealogies must be using some interesting accounting. I’d be interested in a link to it, if you have one.
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Joanie: I completely agree. All those little material details tell me that the physical matters. Incidentally, I believe those are pretty clear instances of he female aspect of God at the forefront there.
“Well they’ve done it now, Wife. I think it’s best for everyone if we just kill them.”
“Yes, well you can kill them later. Right now, it’s time for them to get dressed. They’ve got a busy day ahead.”
WebMonk: As you rightly point out, I have heard YECs subjecting God to their science, too. I’ve been told that the Earth used to point straight up (up in space means which direction again?), and that a globe of ice surrounded the world. Then God tilted us 23 degrees (I think that’s the figure), which melted the ice, caused the flood, and Bob’s your uncle. If that strikes you as a tad presumptuous, you’re not alone.
A brief rundown of my beliefs follows: I do not believe the Earth was created in six days as I know them; or a mere 6,000 years ago, as I know them. I do believe Adam was created from dust. In the gun-to-my-head scenario, I might not hold to the scooping of dust, but I would over the the Lord breathing into Adam’s nostrils and everything after. I base my beliefs on the various facts given on the amount of details given. You probably thought I was advocating the YEC view because I’m more comfortable letting it lie. (Take that last word how you will.) I am VERY suspicious of anything that mitigates the special relationship of being God’s children, of the extreme separation from the depth of the Fall, and of the love beyond all reason that results in Christ’s appearance, death, and the God is Love love that genuinely, literally, brings Him back from the dead in pursuit of us.
I have never heard of a YEC that says Jesus Christ is optional, or sired children by Martha, or didn’t bodily die and come back to life, or any of that pantheistic mumbo-jumbo that is a lot more rampant than YEC seems to me. I’m protective of those wrong-headed, iceball-thinking, no-advanced-math-having rednecks because in my experience they will always stand up and say Jesus is Who He said He was. Because of that, I cut YECs a lot of slack.
On the other hand, I’ve had much worse experience with evolutionists. In my discussions with them, and in my readings on the subject I find a pernicious relativism is necessary to make it plausible. The fellow above who recommends we get rid of Paul demonstrates the logical fallout perfectly, and he is far from alone. Besides, this is the direction people are moving anyway; either evolution, ID, or something along those lines.
Dollars to doughnuts says that Greg, Niki, and those like them made their choices because of bigger things than fundamentalist creationism; experiences within their personal relationships being the most obvious. Sometimes the reason we cite for our choices are cited not because it is the precise reason, but because it gives the best appearance of a good reason.
Now that I’m here, I’m not sure where I was going with this. I do agree that we ought not put extra-Biblical imperatives in there. That’s what I don’t like about the implication in the last several sentences in the Niki post.
“So Niki has gone back to Japan as an atheist. The seeds were sown and perhaps they will take root and bear fruit. Perhaps one day Niki will write and say that she has placed her faith in Jesus and has abandoned her confidence in the usual scientific models of the origin of the earth and human beings. Perhaps Niki will tell us she found a church and has given up her beliefs in science so she could embrace believing in Jesus.
If Niki goes to MIT, or works for NASA or cures cancer or AIDS, will she remember her journey among evangelical Christians as an encouragement to be a great scientist?
Or perhaps Niki will go on being an atheist.
For many Christians, that will continue to be an acceptable outcome.”
I think don’t think I’ve taken iMonk’s argument out of context when I say he is implying a challenge to us that if we don’t introduce some form of evolution into our beliefs we risk sending others to Hell. He’s closed the case as an either/or scenario.
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Rev. John Polkinghorne (Physicist turned Anglican Priest) has some great works out there…not to mention Steven Barr (Roman Catholic) or Alister McGrath. Both are committed Christians who have no problem fully supporting evolution and being a christian at the same time. Their books can be found on Amazon.
In Christ,
Aaron
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what do you do with people who are “young earth” creationists but do not fit the mold of 10K or younger?
the universe is 13021 years old; it, and everything in it was created by the Creator in six literal 24-hour days and these two statements can be verified Biblically.
there was no so-called “big bang” even though the creation may have appeared to human eyes (had they existed at the moment) as overwhelmingly LIKE a big bang.
creationists, at least not ones I know, have no problem with science as a tool; yet are appalled when what passes today for what I call “neo-science,” begins to advance theories that have no support in any of the scientific methods.
I recently read of research into soft tissue, dinosaur DNA that was disparaged in the neo-scientific community because the result didn’t look like chicken DNA.
There is a principle at work when evidence, scientifically obtained and tested is rejected/disparaged because the findings do not fit the “well-known and widely-accepted” wisdom of neo-science: that principle is called “spoliation.”
Quoting: How will anyone really know what dinosaur DNA sequences look like until uncensored data from dinosaur bones are published for public scrutiny? And how will such data be published at all if “embarrassing” research results are routinely discarded as anomalous, simply because they didn’t “look like chicken”? One way to acquire more reliable data in this case would be to repeat the DNA research across multiple labs, until consistent results emerge.
Quoting: In fact, a similar approach was taken in 1994. The winners of the race to sequence dinosaur DNA were Scott Woodward and his colleagues, who published their results in Science.10 They extracted DNA from a purportedly well-preserved dinosaur bone. However, they were not rewarded for their victory. The sequence they discovered was not like birds or reptiles, but seemed unique.
Quoting: Since this 1994 DNA did not fit the evolutionary interpretive filter, the authors were raked over the academic coals. Moreover, the objections to their results were not based on conflicting research results, but appeared in editorials and reviews. As a result of the uproar from the scientific community, their dinosaur DNA sequence never became a permanent entry in any public database. In fact, since this very public academic flogging, no scientist has attempted to publish any dinosaur DNA research (resulting in “chilled” academic speech).
This sort of “review process” is not a scientific one but a neo-scientific one and one that needs to be dismissed; however, given the stakes, unlikely in a climate conducive to story-telling and not scientific enlightening.
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One the texts that challenges me to rethink Genesis 1-11 as something other than a historical/scientific text is Genesis 4:20 and 21. It is a sweet little text that seems so uncontroversial.
20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. 21 His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute.
I am not sure the right name for a text that include this sentence, but scientific history is not it. This guy is not the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock and I have never met anybody who thinks that he is.
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I appreciated the info on Gerald Schroeder above, he sort of touched on a little theory of mine. In engineering school, taking Differential Equations, they often prefaced things with “this assumes a linear, time-invariant system”. Just like Einstein discovered a whole new set of rules beyond Newtonian physics, perhaps there are other factors that we are unaware of that affected the early days of creation.
And as far as all the belittling comments to YECs and their adaptability to work in scientific environments, used to be in a Bible study at a large aerospace company – the biggest draw was when we showed a AIG video series in the 90’s: had more engineers showing up than we knew what to do with, and plenty of positive responses.
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BB,
I think I’m sort of agreeing with you – I don’t think the Bible speaks with definiteness as to the age of the earth and universe. I am quite sure the Bible doesn’t require a 6000 year old world. Neither do I think the Bible requires billions of years. I was putting forward my example of what COULD BE a faithful understanding of Genesis, if someone wants to combine Genesis 2-3 with how we understand science and history. There are others.
I don’t think IMonk was saying we share blame in Niki’s rejection if we don’t accept billions of years, but rather that we share blame in her rejection if we drive her away with false requirements. In this case, the false requirements were those of YEC.
In speaking to the situation where a needless insistence on YEC drives someone away, IMonk isn’t saying that everyone needs to be OEC. He’s giving a defense for a strong Biblical support of OEC, because the general reaction is often – “All you OEC types are throwing out the Bible and YEC is the one and only way to be truly Biblical!!!”
I’m a bit puzzled by what your position is. You said you don’t believe in the 6000 year, 6-day-24-hour creation, but then you also say that the creation of Adam from the literal dust of the earth is rivaled in its remarkableness only by Jesus Christ rising from the dust of the grave, and one cannot be divorced from the other.
Typically the Adam from dust view is associated with YEC, but you said you don’t believe in 6000/6/24 view. I thought you were advocating the YEC view, but now I’m a bit puzzled.
In general though, IMonk’s point could be addressed at the OEC crowd if they were setting up extra-Biblical requirements for Christianity like the YEC crowd often does. If the OEC group were to start going around saying that one must reject a literal Adam, Eve, or Eden to be a Christian, then they could be part of what drives Niki away. Some OEC people might, but as a whole, the OEC group tends to be pretty hands off as far as placing specific requirements on the details of Adam and co. Hugh Ross is an OEC who (I believe) believes that God did scoop together dirt to form Adam.
The point isn’t particularly OEC or YEC – it’s the setting up of extra Biblical requirements. If we set extra-Biblical requirements, even if we think we’re propounding the one and only truth, we contribute to Niki’s disaffection with Christ.
The OEC people I know don’t typically say that God didn’t form Adam out of dust, but rather that the formation was through the process of evolution. Since the Bible doesn’t give us the details of how God formed Adam from dust (did God assume a corporeal presence for a while? did he use His natural laws to form us? did He just tell the dust to assemble and it did?), I don’t see any problems with using science to look into the details of how God may have done things.
Some things God did through miracles, in which case science will not be able to find a natural explanation. Some things God did through natural laws, and those things science can look at. I tend to think God created Adam through natural means (though the Bible doesn’t specifically state so), but I don’t have too much issue with the view that God created Adam through supernatural means (again, the Bible doesn’t specifically say so).
This would be a point where someone could start putting in extra-Biblical requirements though – “you MUST believe God used natural processes”, “you MUST believe God took corporeal form”, “you MUST believe God invisibly ordered the dust to form into Adam”. In this case, the “you MUST” part is being inserted and can form a barrier.
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Oh man, I do. I can think of several times that I would have liked God to wipe my evil classroom from the face of the Earth. Of course, in that scenario I was Noah. My own children have a very developed sense of the “righteousness” of paternal justice. When one of them screws up, the others can’t wait to tell me.
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Oh, and BB…one more thing. Isn’t it interesting that God makes clothes out of skins for Adam and Eve. Jesus tells us that God is a “Spirit.” How did a Spirit make clothes out of skin? There’s something kind of “charming” thinking about God making these clothes.
(I also like it very much that Jesus cooked up fish for the disciples after his resurrection. I sometimes wish I could have been there to have taken part in that meal.)
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Not sure how much this will contribute, but I wanted to point out:
Historical books like Acts and the Gospels are historical in the general sense, but in any historical book you can have passages that contain poetry, doctrine, apocolyptic literature, prophecy, metaphor, and especially with the Gospels parables.
And, i would point out that even historical narratives need to be understood in the context they were written in, not the context they are read. Considering the vast space of time between the authorship of the Bible and now, our understanding of certain things has changed, deepened, and/or grown. You have to factor that into a proper understanding.
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or, if memory serves, its a “false dichotomy”
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I’m not going to address whether the earth is or isn’t 4.5 billion years old. Just wanted to point out the Radio Carbon dating is only accurate up to about 60,000 years back. See http://www.howstuffworks.com/carbon-14.htm or the article on Wikipedia for further information.
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Webmonk, I just can’t get onboard with the the either/or stance of the human interaction with God that is basis for the necessity of Christ’s appearance on Earth and the foundation of our faith. I don’t believe in a 6 day, 6,000 yo world; nor do I believe in a 13.5B yo universe. I simply don’t care. And If someone made the galactic mistake of putting me in charge of a church, I would doctrinally be a Nicene sort of guy and leave it at that.
But iMonk is challenging that notion. I read him as saying if I can’t accept the preponderance of evidence for an old Earth and evolution, and work it into my theology in an acceptable manner for an unbelieving atheist, then I may shame blame for a person like Niki’s damnation. He’s not saying I have to believe in evolution strictly, or ID, or any other system of thought–I don’t want to put words in his mouth–but the implication is that if I put my foot down about Adam and the Fall of Man (which I do), and someone can’t jive that with the findings of science and ultimately rejects Christ because if it, then I’m responsible in some measure–if not the full.
I reject that, too, but if he’s right, and my faith needs to be measured against and account for falsifiable claims that are experimentally repeatable, then I just need to leave the faith and let the preponderance of evidence produced by science be my guide. When our position must be adjusted to the findings of scientific inquiry, then scientific inquiry becomes an authority of our faith. I think God is serious when He calls Himself a jealous God. The creation of Adam from the literal dust of the earth is rivaled in its remarkableness only by Jesus Christ rising from the dust of the grave. One cannot be divorced from the other.
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No worries about the placement of replies, Joanie. I’ve been reduced to opening two windows, but I shall find a way to persevere. 😉
Q: Do you ever wonder why Eve would listen to a serpent and believe the serpent over God?
I have, yes, but it hasn’t really troubled me. It seems like she made a rational decision. What the serpent said was legally true: she did become like God in knowing right from wrong; she didn’t immediately die; and I have to assume the fruit tasted good because she passed it onto Adam. She could hardly have made a nasty face, could she? “Ugh, Man, this is awful…have some.” It’s also worth noting that their eyes weren’t opened until a certain point, which can be said two ways, and thus lead to two different conclusions: After they both ate, or after Adam ate. I’ll come back to this.
Q: Was Eve not very bright? Was the serpent just very pretty? Did she forget what God was like?
I think she was bright, and the serpent used it against her. I’m not sure if the pretty statement is meant to be a barb looking for sexist flesh, but I don’t think appearance would have much to do with it. I mean, it’s doubtful the serpent was grotesque, but what’s important is that the serpent was flattering; full of promises of self improvement. That’s right: Osteen and the self-help/self-esteem industry are only continuing the legacy set forth in the garden! You may see some correlation of why the serpent approached Eve instead of Adam, and the demographics of who self-help materials are marketed towards. Lastly, she obviously did not forget about God, since wanting to be more like him was a selling point.
Q: And don’t you just love how both Adam and Eve blame someone else for their bad decision! Eve blames the serpent; Adam blames Eve.
Adam’s sin is worse because his blame of Eve is actually just a sideswipe; his real target was God, “You gave her to me!” Behold the original “root cause” and social justice argument: “It’s not my fault, look at the circumstances ‘The Man’ foisted on me.”
I would posit that it wasn’t necessarily Eve’s job to resist the serpent’s argument. What was Adam thinking? Why didn’t he intervene? I think he couldn’t bother to rouse himself from the hammock; much as we are predisposed today when Oprah does an episode on “The Secret”. Maybe there was some sexism at work, “I’ll be darned if she’s going to be wiser than me!” I don’t think being Lewis or Chesterton offers any resistance to this weakness. Besides, this question of free will, and why God created us the way He did exists unsolved no matter what approach you take to the matter.
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Andrew…(I am still hitting Reply way up under one of my posts in this thread.) Yes, I have read Romans 5 and it does talk about sin coming into the world due to the sin of Adam and that all humans after Adam were sinners. And I believe it. Yet, I can still believe that Adam “stands for” the first human being to have consciousness of both God’s presence and then his own separateness from God due to his sin. And then all humans after that encountered the same situation, needing God to intervene or they would be lost forever.
Either way, I am fine with people taking it literally or figuratively. But for those folks who are going to leave the Faith because they cannot believe in an actual Adam and Eve who did exactly what the Bible says they did, there needs to be more than one way to understand this part of Genesis. At least that is my take on it. I do not want any of Jesus’ followers to go among the missing.
Also, remember Jesus talking about the little children and saying that people in the Kingdom of God were like the little children. What do you think he meant? Did you think he meant that the children were innocent? I do. I do not believe that unless those tiny children were baptized they were going to hell. We are all born with the tendency to choose evil rather than love, but you have to make a choice. The smallest children are not yet aware enough to make that kind of choice. They are living innocently. If they die, they are with God. Parents who lose children need to know that.
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BB, that’s certainly one way to look at it, a bit weird and stilted, but I guess it’s one way to view it. What you made seems like it is more of a “Genesis-as-total-fantasy” rather than a literary view of it. “Literary” does not mean totally made up, completely fantasized, or wholly divorced from accuracy.
How about this:
Essentially a pack, or small group I would think. Probably a human, and some family one generation down. Because at this point what we’re talking about is the rise of a new race. The first human would have been alone, but able to procreate with another pre-human, and successfully pass on his traits. So far so good.
God walked among the garden–that is, the world in general or a particular place designated and blessed. God selected Adam to be the full recipient of God’s image, un-fallen. Adam walks with God (possibly literally, possibly similarly to how Jesus “walked” with God) learning of God, the world, animals, and plants, and comes to realize his loneliness. God brings Eve, either another human into which God breathes or through a miracle from Adam’s rib. Either way, it works.
Satan tempts Adam and Eve. Whether it is at a literal tree, or another temptation to which she and they fall, but symbolized by the tree – it happens. God and man are separated, and man can no longer live in the state of rightness with God. Whether this is done through a literal kicking them out of the Garden with verbal warnings, or whether the Garden is used as a description of man’s general perfect relationship with God and Adam and Eve realize the separation on their own – either way, it happens.
Literary doesn’t mean the description is a complete divorce from reality. What I wrote above is a description that covers a range of how “literal” the literary meaning of Genesis is. Any of them could work, and there are quite a few other options that make the Genesis account much more “literal”, but still don’t require a 6-24-hour-day creation.
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Reconozco mis carencias en este asunto. He leÃdo algunos escritos subapostólicos, Didaché, Epistola de Clemente, las epÃstolas de Ignacio de AntioquÃa y algunas cosas más, pero la verdad es que nunca me he fijado en este aspecto doctrinal. Profundizaré. Si usted me puede sugerir algún autor en especial que tenga una visión parecida a la expuesta por Michael Spencer se lo agradecerÃa.
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Listen to his exposition on mark, this was made at the end of his life. he died one year later. He said that the earth may be billions of “jillions” of years old. I thought that was cute and humble. approaching death is humbling. If he wrote much after that, I haven’t found it.
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The comparison of wheelbarrows to space shuttles is odd choice for your argument, since the former has benefited mankind a billion times more than the latter. It begs the question, “How much value has sophistication?”
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The problem isn’t the theory, the problem is the approach. Yet another attempt to shoe-horn 20th century science into ancient texts. I don’t think that twisting science is any better than twisting the texts.
And I fear that the majority of Christians are no better at detecting twisting of texts than twisting of science…
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BB..(I am still hitting “Reply” way up under my post some posts above). Do you ever wonder why Eve would listen to a serpent and believe the serpent over God? If the serpent was anything like a dragon, that would certainly scare the &*!$%! out of me! Was Eve not very bright? Was the serpent just very pretty? Did she forget what God was like? And don’t you just love how both Adam and Eve blame someone else for their bad decision! Eve blames the serpent; Adam blames Eve. Gee, God must have been thinking, “Oops, I guess I went wrong with these two. I should have just skipped to C.S Lewis or Chesterton and the like and be done with it. Hmmm, but whom should I have made for a woman? Surely someone brighter than this Eve lady.”
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Good question, Jim. I don’t claim to know “the answer”, but I’ll share one scriptural way I’ve found to address your particular question. According to the first chapter of Genesis, God spoke things into existence. God said it, and it came to pass. Hold that thought in your head and jump forward in Genesis to God’s promises to Abraham. God spoke these promises to Abraham, and they also came to pass — though there was a sizable expanse of time and a whole lot of other stuff involved between the speaking and the coming to pass. Among those things that came into play were numerous individual choices, marriages, births, deaths, family conflicts, wars and battles, political upheavals, climate changes, and major ecological disasters, just to name a few. And on the microscopic level were the movements of countless atoms and subatomic particles. And given the interconnected nature of the universe, it might not be inaccurate to say that all the matter and energy in the universe was involved in bringing these promises into being. That, to me, is just as awesome and mind-blowing as God speaking and “presto” it’s there. I believe that when God speaks, both heaven and earth fall in line — it’s just that, here in the physical universe, that process may be a good deal more complicated and time consuming than what we like to imagine when we read Genesis.
One interesting thing about the Big Bang theory is that it suggests that, just before the universe began, all the matter in existence was compressed into a space smaller than a single atom, and then (somehow from some unknown source) this tiny spot was impregnated with an infinite or near infinite amount of energy, which sent it all flying outward. It makes me think of a seed, fertilized with God’s power, growing into something so big it can scarcely be comprehended. It also makes me think of Jesus’ frequent comparisons between seeds and the Kingdom of God. Maybe it’s just a matter of the physical universe mirroring an even more real, eternal, and infinite spiritual reality.
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Mainly, I think it was because we were too busy dealing with other important theological issues — such as: Should we allow instruments to be played during services?, Should we sprinkle or immerse?, Should we let non-clergy persons read scripture for themselves?, Should we let non-clergy persons think for themselves at all?, Was Jesus (in His bodily incarnation) made of the same substance as God the Father?, Should the church torture and burn all heretics or just some of them as an example?, and Does a witch weigh the same as a duck?
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Dumping them might be going a bit too far. But I think learning to read Paul’s letters as letters written to address specific problems and circumstances in specific churches in specific cultural and political environments — rather than as collections of religious mandates and laws — would be a big leap forward.
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Well, no. Those who do the research and publish their findings in the scientific papers very rarely make “good amounts of money”. It tends to be the ones funded by the oil companies and the like to sign petitions and write to newspapers who are better funded. Much like, for instance the Discovery Institute is staggeringly well funded, and Behe now earns more than he did in a proper university..
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Back when I was a teenager, I struggled a lot over the differences between what the Bible says and what science says about the origins of the universe and humankind. I think most teenagers in the church do, though many never say a word about it to anyone, and certainly not to anyone in their church. Sadly, I think most of them end up having to work through this struggle alone and with very little help from the adults in their lives. I can remember suggesting to a youth pastor during a youth Bible study that maybe the days in the seven day creation story are symbolic of larger periods of time. He became stiff and defensive and announced very loudly that not believing in a literal seven day creation was the same as not believing in God, as far as he was concerned. Looking back, it was inflexible, dogmatic people like this in the church that contributed significantly to my drift away from the church and faith during my early 20’s — and it was only by God’s mercy and miraculous intervention that I managed to rediscover and embrace the Christian faith some years later.
All that said, I think it’s very important for we adults in the church to be sensitive to the struggles of doubt that young people face and strive to help them through it without telling them what they have to or are supposed to believe about this or that. I would also like to hear some practical ideas about how some of you address this issue within your own churches.
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There is not way to give a 5 year old a truly rounded picture. Unless you’re going to kill off Santa Clause and such.
But raise them to learn for themselves, not just recite back what others teach them.
We’re a fairly conservative household all in all but most of my news comes from having public radio and NPR on most of the day as I work from home. And I watch (via TiVo) NPR’s News Hour most days. My kids heard it and came to realize on their own that believing in a position doesn’t mean you have to not listen to the other side. If an atheist has the best set of facts on the life of Moses, read them and learn from them. Just understand the bias. In every direction.
While not planned it turned out OK. I didn’t even know our church (fairly large) had a “creation room” based on AIG information that the various grades cycled through during the year until my daughter was in the 9th grade. My son was a junior at the time. I asked him what he thought of the room and he said it seemed very foolish and he didn’t figure it was worth discussing. My daughter admitted that when she got sick several Sundays in a row it was to avoid the “room”. 🙂
And prior to that we had never discussed the issue. I had just figured that Christians mostly agreed to disagree. What brought it all to a head was when 11th and 12th grade kids started being asked to leave their SS class as they kept asking questions about the “science” being taught. The problem being that the kids asking the questions already knew more science than the SS teachers. (Some of these kids had perfect SAT scores.) It was the beginning of a 2 year long process where many of us left THAT church over this and other issues.
But back to your question. Teach them what you believe. Teach them to respect their elders when young and how to politely disagree when older and when it is appropriate to disagree and when to site quietly.
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Thanks for reposting this.
How much of this specific problem is caused by the overall way churches tend to teach?
I have found few examples of humble men and women teaching their congregations their own best understandings, while also teaching them how to find evidence and come to their own conclusions.
Much of my own reexamining of things has come from the weakness of a dogmatic argument raising doubts that have forced me to learn how to think through issues and theology rather than good examples of Christian leadership.
I find it quite disturbing.
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If man ate only plants and then switched to meat, why not animals?
Apparently Noah was a herbivore turned omnivore.
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First, I love this post. It is interesting to consider why we look beyond inspiration. God inspired individuals to write the bible for a reason. All scripture leads us to the cross. Seeking scientific proofs or connection to current events seems to be a pursuit of something else, perhaps on the lines of another iMonk post from last year on treating the bible as a magic book, containing secrets to a perfect life, a live-forever diet, a no lose wealth-making scheme.
Second, I think it is odd to call YEC folks unscientific. Consider Keith Green’s tracks on evolution, where he quotes a long list of scientists who believed in God and creationism. Creationists and fundamentalists in general like neat-and-tidy Newtonian science and natural law in general. I recall Keith Green’s point was that evolution was a stark departure from science established upon a Judeo-Christian worldview. A lot of popular worldview teachings lately follow this same line; the goal is to get science and politics back in the right boxes. If you are a Christian, there is a right answer to everything: science, education, economics, politics, religion. It’s all black-and-white: capitalism: good; socialism; bad. Republicans: good; Democrats: bad. “Drill, drill, drill”: good; tree-hugging: bad. Cars: good; mass-transit: bad.
The problem isn’t that YEC and fundamentalist folks are unscientific but that they may not be able think outside predefined answers. Some challenges in life require us to come up with creative solutions and to embrace mystery. But Christian fundamentalists and new-atheist fundamentalists might have a lot in common. They both can’t see beyond the lines they’ve drawn in the sand.
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No, I am being completely serious. Sarcasm is too unwieldy in this topic–we’re already at odds of literal and literary!
I admit that my description is not true to your description Joanie, but I wasn’t trying to twist your words. In my mind, I extrapolated what a mundanely evolved, strictly literary Adam and Eve would look like…
—Run Program Mind’s Eye 2.1
Essentially a pack, or small group I would think. Probably a human, and some family one generation down. Because at this point what we’re talking about is the rise of a new race. The first human would have been alone, but able to procreate with another pre-human, and successfully pass on his traits. So, in this setting, I tried to place God. The literature says he walked among the garden–that is, the world in general I guess, maybe even a nice part of it–but this is just literary. God probably “walked among” this small group in the same manner in which today Christians speak of “listening for God”. That is, no real words, therefore no real footprints either. After the non-fruit incident, He doesn’t really scold the pack, and deliver the consequences. The consequences just happen, and they sort of suddenly feel bad.
—End Program
This is the problem I have with a literary interpretation of Genesis once humans are on the scene. Everything then must now be assumed to be an allusion to something else. No talking serpent, no magic trees, no First Two Humans, no God walking with them, no God talking with them… I’m left with the idea of some apes wondering around pretty much like all the others (but with less throwing of poop,hopefully) and God starring as an ethereal Jane Goodall who doesn’t actually interact with them in a way their senses can perceive except as urges. In other words: very much like people describe Him today. Except that we explain the Silence by the Fall. They were unfallen. Shouldn’t the experience be dramatically different? Isn’t that the current hope Christ offers? If the hope is actually a return to a state much like the current one, but with less guilt…well, you can see how I reduced my extrapolation of your literary interpretation to a lot of feelings.
In my opinion, that unfallen world stinks, and is not worthy of the a god who raises Himself from the dead! Not asleep–dead. The consciousness is completely gone, but He somehow wills it back into a body. This is nothing short of unaccountable magic; it goes beyond reason. It’s more likely to me that God walking was real, Adam and Eve were real, the serpent was real; maybe not even merely a snake, but a talking winged serpent–a dragon. This makes more sense to me than a mythic poem about how humans mundanely discovered they were naked, or lying, or whatever sin not-eating the non-fruit is supposed to signify.
I know some of this sounds sarcastic (not-eating, etc.) I don’t mean it to be. I’m just trying to keep the focus of a non-literal interpretation. Also, I make no theological claim to the dragon thing. If there’s a Doctrinal Jar for that thought, it’s number 2,637. It’s just that if that were true, it seems more in line with the disciplines handed out to Adam and Eve. Plus, dragons do show up in nearly all the different societies of the ancient world.
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Probably a few days, maybe a week.
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Yes, we feel guilty because we are guilty and we are guilty because Adam sinned. Read Romans 5. Genesis 3 is literal. It has to be or the rest of the Bible doesn’t make sense. Adam and Eve did not just come to understand guilt. They were not guilty, they did what God told them not to do (I have no idea why he picked a tree), and they became guilty, forever separating the human race from God until they could be redeemed.
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McGee eventually became a young-Earther.
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good point, but it is,
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I live in Terre Haute, but went to Purdue from ’90-’95. I remember Max quite well
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“We do not worship Cthulhu.”
Speak for yourself!
http://www.geocities.com/tribhis/cthulhutract.html
Just kidding.
Great article, Michael. If anything, it is humbling to admit that some of the things of God are beyond our comprehension. If the Early Church Fathers were divided on this issue, I don’t see how I can take a hard stance.
What if Christians took the Messianic passages in Isaiah “literally”? The Jews all have perfectly logical, probably more literal, explanations for all those passages. The Early Fathers used typology to interpret these passages as being about Christ.
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Jim, I’m still laughing over your conundrum!
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Well, Martha, there is plenty of good evidence that the universe exists. Not so much or on the same scale for the deity, I’m afraid to say. And I’m not sure who and on what basis anyone is claiming that the universe is eternal. The latest estimates are around 13.5 billion years.
What I do find fascinating is that there are so many people who seem to need a god-sanctioned beginning, middle, and end explanation for humanity as if it were absolutely common sense to approach the subject with such a time line, but then turn right around and allow God to be exempted from this same algorithm as if such an exemption made perfect sense! Why shouldn’t God have – at least theoretically – a beginning, middle, and end? On whose authority?
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Well, Aranion, you are definitely not alone. Many highly respected scientists follow exactly this line of reasoning because it allows for both evolution and a creator.
The Hindu idea of Brahman, the creator that breaths the universe in and out (over some very large number of years) is quite appealing to those who wish to insert the Big Bang theory into harmony with their theocracy. The problem, of course, is drawing specific beliefs about the nature of such an ancient creator that set the stage for evolution to occur into our daily lives, such as believing that there is a divine concern over specific diet and dress and other rather remarkable assumptions, and this is where many of these same scientists often fall off the reason wagon.
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Fr. Ernesto writes And, frankly, outside of some of the extreme folks few scientists would claim that science has anything that could disprove the Resurrection per se.
I would go even farther down this hypothesis and suggest that no honest scientist would ever take up such a silly challenge. The reason is that no one can disprove anything; one can only offer evidence FOR some claim. So if the claim is for the Resurrection, then the onus falls on those who believe it to be true to offer evidence. The only evidence we have is anecdotal which, although it is evidence, is of the weakest kind. One might be tempted to think God could do a better job leaving some undeniable evidence indelibly imprinted for latter generations than a weak he said/ she said accounting.
As for the point that both scientific and theological claims are approximately equal in truth value because both involve interpretation requires some clarification.
The very point of the scientific method is to try to eliminate all but one objectively repeatable cause to explain effect. The interpretation of the data during this process should be slowly nullified as much as possible before any definitive link is made between cause and effect. When someone throws in the suggestion that all claims – religious and scientific – are subject to equal amounts of interpretation, then something very important is being ignored in the comparison… the sophistication of the final product (the conclusion). That ‘something’ makes a considerable difference in the quality of the conclusion, namely, trying to find a single cause that is testable, repeatable, falsifiable, and consistent over time so that it no longer matters who suggest the cause or what motivation lies behind the inquiry. The cause remains the cause here, there, yesterday, and tomorrow, and can be tested by anyone regardless of personal agendas seeking specific conclusions. It’s a tough job.
Interpreting data in as accurate a way as possible is a very difficult and exacting pursuit. It is part – and a necessary part – of the scientific method. But it is light years ahead of interpreting data to fit a belief that does NOT require all the additional steps of refinement necessary for a scientific conclusion that directly links cause to effect. For anyone to suggest that the two methods of investigation are the same as those between interpreting scientific data and theological beliefs is hardly comparing apples to apples: it’s like comparing the sophistication of a space shuttle to a wheelbarrow because they both contain wheels.
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I never did quite understand how the story of God wiping almost all life off the face of the earth became a cute children’s story.
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Imonk,
Real problem here. How do we with young children address this? These creation stories, flood stories are some of most children’s favorite tales. It seems sort to dilute the specialness when you tell the story then give a “but…”
At what point do you start to give them a rounded picture?
Austin
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but notice that spurgeon thought that man was much more recent than anything else, i think that is actually a fairly good compromise, sort of the Hugh Ross idea that yes the earth is old, very old, but God moves in creative spurts and man is a fairly recent creation of God
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Paradigms on Pilgramage by Godfrey and Smith gives their accounts of seeing the errors in the YEC position from both the geologic and Bible position. They both started out fervent YEC’ers and very suspicious of anything else, as they had been taught, so they were dragged kicking into becoming non-YEC. A great read.
John Walton has a new book out on Gen 1 which is on my wish list after reading the Intro and 1st chapter for free on the publisher’s website. He claims it is ancient cosmology, which is a very different thing than modern cosmology.
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Uh, no.
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Dear Mr. Spencer,
One thing I am genuinely curious about (you may have answered this already but I have not read through all the comments) if Genesis is meant in a literary sense- are you saying it is compatible with the concept that Genesis brings up when it states God made man from the dust and when man was formed He breathed life into him…that God never literally breathed into a humanoid form of dust but that there was a between the line meaning ( which I am not opposed to because one does that with Scripture at different areas- as we do in conversation)? I am not trying to split hairs but if we descended in an evolutionary fashion when did man become special , set apart……or when in history did man get his Soul? Or are these irrelevant questions?
My major concern is not the scientific aspect or the literal aspect of the discussion- but the philosophical explanation…when did man become the pinnacle of creation that Genesis is definitley saying man was given by God?
I hope I was clear!
Sincerely,
Reid
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Imonk, I go to a SBC seminary and I hold to the old earth view and I haven’t been strung up for saying it in class. In fact our professors do not disregard theistic evolution as a plausible evangelical view. That should be encouraging right?
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Seriously, dumping the writings of Paul from the Bible would fix 80% of problems with the church today. There would be no problem with evolution, women could speak in the church, healthcare would be supported, and slavery would cease to be acceptable.
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BB, there was no place to hit “Reply” under your name, so I hit it under mine. BUT, I do agree that it IS “about the reconciliation of me to Him through Christ.” We feel guilty because we ARE guilty. We are separated from God because of our sin. We NEED Jesus in order to be reconciled to God. I guess I didn’t make it clear. Sorry. But I can still believe that the story of Adam and Eve is allegorical AND still true.
Oh, and in regard to the “magical tree” being acceptable…I just didn’t get into describing what it is about that “tree.” I don’t think there had to be an actual “tree.” I don’t really know what is intended by that passage. I have some thoughts, but they are not fully developed and therefore I won’t try them out here.
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So did the Jesuit priest who discovered the Big Bang. That’s the weird thing coming from the YEC, the Big Bang is actually Christian in origin, hardly atheistic.
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There should be no debate that the earth is more than 6,000 years ago. The infallible Apostle Paul, speaking for God himself, clearly and decisively commanded that the universe was created in six days and did not come from what was before. Anyone who does not believe this doctrine is going straight to hell.
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If you’re ok with reading a book by a Catholic, I’d recommend Ken Miller, especially Finding Darwin’s God. Miller is the author of perhaps the most popular high school biology textbook
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Are you Hugh Ross?????
(just joking off the name similarity)
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I was trying to be polite.
I completely agree with you. I’m not at the doctorate level of math, but I spent enough credits in college that I probably should have continued on to just get my degree in astronomy. I got through enough of general relativity to work through Dr. Humphrey’s writings pretty thoroughly, and they fall apart pretty quickly, just from my informed layman’s knowledge.
I didn’t think that the errors were all that tricky to even my undergrad level of knowledge, so needless to say I am not exactly impressed (understatement) with how Dr. Humphrey, having a PhD in physics, made such mistakes and false claims. He has revised it and I haven’t bothered to get the revision. I’m just taking the word of some others that it drops the substance of his first book almost in its entirety, but still doesn’t provide a coherent model.
In the AiG/ICR RATE study, I read his explanation of how “volumetric cooling” might have taken place, and it looks like he is heading over the edge into plain fantasizing without any basis in physics at all.
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I appreciate this add on post. How we treat ‘the other side’ says a lot about us as people, and as Christians. The more you get to know people, whether they be ‘theo evo’s”, YEC’ers, or physical materialists, the more you realize that people are nuanced, even if a particular view is not.
God’s rest and peace on you and yours
Greg R
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BB, perhaps you’re serious in your compliment of JoanieD’s description, but you seem to completely misrepresent it. (unless you were being sarcastic or speaking to a different statement, in which case you have my apologies)
“And if this is the truth, that God just wants me to be okay with myself; it’s not actually about the reconciliation of me to Him through Christ because of sin, but because I feel bad; that Christ died to take away my guilty feelings; that walking with my Father in the cool of the evening is forbidden because I’m not comfortable in my own skin…”
That’s about as completely divorced of a restatement of JoanieD’s position as I can imagine. Again, if you were being sarcastic and I missed it, I’m sorry, but if you were being serious, as you state, I think you need to change the glasses you’re using to read her statement.
I agree that what you described is not the religion for me either, but that’s not what JoanieD actually said.
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>I don’t know how old the earth is and don’t much care. Truth is I don’t think anyone knows.
Four and a half billion years, based on radio-carbon dating. (NB: the *universe* is substantially older, and is currently estimated at something like 14 billion years.) Subject, of course, to later revision.
>For me the idea of an expanding universe is one I want to investigate, I’m always asking myself though “what exactly is it expanding into then�
I am interested in this myself. We can think of a balloon as a two dimensional (not really, but let’s pretend) space warped through a third dimension, and expanding through same. The universe is a three-dimensional space expanding through…an uncertain number of higher dimensions. So could God exist somewhere out there? The problem with that line of reasoning is, what exactly is it about this extra-dimensional entity that makes it worthy of worship? (We do not worship Cthulhu.)
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Global Warming
How’s this?
We, humans, have been running a 150 year long experiment on changing the atmosphere of Earth by dumping huge amounts of CO2 into it. Industrial revolution and all that. Plus some other experiments on the chemistry and composition of the oceans. But there was no real planning for these experiments and no real thought to the consequences of said experiments.
The atmosphere of the planet seems to be getting slightly warming over the last few decades, maybe the last century. Not at one single data point but there does seem to be a slight trend. But over the last 2000 years it has gotten warming and colder at times. For a while it was very warm 1000 years ago and then it got very cold for a few hundred years. And the end of the cold spell seems to line up somewhat with our experiments in CO2. And there do seem to be correlations between slight changes in temperature and large changes in growing patterns and rainfall in areas.
We should look into all of this. But we should not jump to any conclusions without evidence. The “it’s a given” and “it can’t ever happen” camps seem to be controlling the debate and even the science.
I’m not happy at all with any of this.
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Take this one. How much time did Genesis 2:19-20 take?
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In a few earlier posts I insinuated that YEC folks are extremists. Yes there are a lot of folks who believe in YEC but don’t know how to reconcile the science. OK. So be it. It’s the AIG branch of YEC that is over the top. They claim to use science but then say much of science is a fraud.
I should have been clear that I consider the AIG folks to be the extremists. I just feel that YEC folks have got it wrong. 🙂
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I thought about the problem of infinite regress over the last year when my daughter got married and they sent out “save the date” cards and I puzzled over why we didn’t just send the invitations out and get it over with.
My wife didn’t think it amusing when I suggested that we could go on infinitely “saving the date,” (card after card to the end of time) and she told me — correctly, no doubt — that I should pay the bills and leave the philosophers out of this.
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“You think of technology in the very limited terms of laboratories and iPhones. Technology is also animal husbandry, automotive repair, warfare, and lots of other dirty jobs that it’s doubtful you could do”
Technology is there but not much quantum or relativistic physics. Modern integrated circuits just don’t exist in the world described by YEC fans.
As to automobiles we could also get into discussions about motion sensors for air bags and GPS systems or even the radios in your GPS but the YEC crowd doesn’t understand (most of them) to see the disconnect.
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I’ve read Humphreys’ book. As have others I know. We all think he’s way off base. One of us is a PHD in math who can understand the calculus Humphreys talks about and considered it total junk.
And to be honest any science theory which contains two instances of “God then redefined physics” to make it work aren’t science but something else. Not sure what but not science.
Problems. You bet. Monster major huge problems.
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BTW, anyone looking for a good introductory book on the interplay of faith and science should take a look at Faith, Science and Understanding by John Polkinghorne. Excellent entry-level tome (short and easily digested) for the topic.
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I think the YEC position and the intensity with which it is held is primarily an overreaction (and an understandable one) to an intensive effort on the other side to make out the Genesis story to be nothing but a fable and certainly scientifically inaccurate. I agree with the YEC position that the story IS in fact not inconsistent with science and that actual scientific inaccuracies would undermine the divinity of Scripture and therefore its authority. I think that even a simple attempt at harmonizing Genesis with modern science actually produces good results that don’t require the extreme positions either of YEC or completely atheistic evolution—I’m not saying it all wraps up in a pretty little box, but just that with a little bit of honest thoughtfulness, I don’t see any real problem taking the text literally, by and large, and maintaining consistency, by and large, with science. Having said that, I also acknowledge and agree with sentiments posted here that the point of the story in the first place is not to provide a detailed scientific explanation of how things went, but rather to provide the foundation for understanding God’s place in the universe and our place relative to Him. There are wonderful symbolic, literary and spiritual treasures to be gleaned from the text if we can get over trying to find explicit scientific statements therein.
I find that many YEC folks are also strong dispensationalists (pre-trib rapture, 7 year tribulation following a very literal interpretation of Revelation). To me, this connection makes sense, because both promote an overly (in my opinion) literalistic approach to both ends of the Bible. With respect to Revelation, I think there is a similar motivation at work in that there is a reaction (an overreaction) to the other side belittling the book as nothing more than a fable about good triumphing over evil or even a “pious fiction” written as a prophecy after the fact. The overly literalistic approach is an effort to lift up Scripture as divine and authoritative against this perceived anti-biblical criticism. But the problem is that we don’t do ourselves, God or the world any service and we’re not somehow more spiritual by taking things literally that aren’t intended to be read as such or by imposing a reading which is claimed to be literal but which in fact is only selectively so (and often not even based on sound textual readings!), the selectiveness being that which supports the a priori literalistic viewpoint (like YEC) being promoted.
I think that YEC is a net negative for the church and that if its practicioners could simply realize that there other views of Genesis which are not YEC but yet still uphold the accuracy and truthfulness of Scripture, Christians themselves could stop fighting over this issue and start working together on the world.
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Pues, Luis, si lees los padres de la Iglesia durante los primeros 400 años del cristianismo, verás que hubo discusión plena sobre el género literario de Génesis. Varios de los padres lo consideraban como alegorÃa en vez de como relato histórico. Por eso los credos nunca declaran cómo nuestro Señor hizo los cielos y la tierra. Simplemente nos informan que debemos de creer que él sà los hizo.
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“I never met any YEC’ers for the first 20+ years of my Christian life (I rather thought they were a media myth) and was totally perplexed when I first met someone who held this view (he was also KJV-only, another new one on me!)”
KJV only is a part of YEC. At least if you speak English.
Watch the DVD debate with KH and his astrophysicist buddy and two others and you’ll get the real feel of KH. If you’re not 110% with him, you’re not a Christian.
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This is a good example of a coherent literary take on the Genesis. I’m being serious.
And if this is the truth, that God just wants me to be okay with myself; it’s not actually about the reconciliation of me to Him through Christ because of sin, but because I feel bad; that Christ died to take away my guilty feelings; that walking with my Father in the cool of the evening is forbidden because I’m not comfortable in my own skin…then this is no religion for me. I’m being serious about this also.
Except for the trees. Why is one magical tree acceptable, but not the other, or Adam, serpent, etc.? Aren’t they just as likely to be literary devices, and therefore death is less of a direct consequence than a judgment call made by God?
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Ahem, the traditional interpretation was what? In another post by iMonk I quoted at least four Church Fathers within the first 400 years that did not see them as 24 hour days. One of them was from the second century. I could have quoted more. That is why there was no credal statement possible on that other than that God created heaven and earth.
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So instead of Aristotle, we get infinite regress.
Turtles all the way down!
Which is just as mind-bending to me as a moment of creation, but apparently it’s not okay for a deity to be eternal but it is okay for a universe.
Still, I am happy with the notion that the question “What was there before the Big Bang?” is indeed meaningless, and not just a dodge of cosmologists 🙂
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Just visit the AIG site and Hugh Ross’ site. Bounce between them. It didn’t take me long to realize which was blowing smoke. And make sure you find the page on the AIG site of “things we need to stop saying”. It’s somewhat hidden. I think I found it via google. Search for moon dust.
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If there were a conflict between the “correct” interpretation of a biblical claim and science, the first thing I would do would be to check the interpretation on both sides of the issue. Of course there are many things a Christian cannot give up and still be a Christian. No Resurrection would mean no Christ, as Saint Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 15. And, frankly, outside of some of the extreme folks few scientists would claim that science has anything that could disprove the Resurrection per se.
But, let me give you some other issues. Major amounts of blood are regularly spilled in the area of the archeology of the Middle East. If you think creationism is causing fights in the USA (which is mainly where that war is fought), you ought to look at the major worldwide fights between archeologists over the Middle East! And, they do not line up as easily as Christian and non-Christian.
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Evolution provides us with a mechanism to show why design occurs without any need for a supernatural designer.
What I was saying, ineptly, is that I look at the universe as a whole being designed by God – which includes providing the physical laws and environment for evolution to happen. This also touches on the foreknowledge vs predestination argument, which I’m generally not interested in (I’m not even close to Reformed in my theology).
And while that may sound like an ID argument, it’s not meant to be, at least as I understand ID. I’m not a proponent of Behe or his ilk.
Yes, there’s the philosophical conundrum of where did God come from. Better minds than me are needed for that issue.
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Forget plants. Unless God totally re-wrote the chemistry of how your body works, bacteria had to live and die in your gut by the millions for anyone to digest plants.
The only way around this is for proteins and such to be directly injected into your blood stream. Or maybe your liver.
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Oh, I have no problem saying that we do not know when the Fall happened other than before the conception of the first child. I was commenting on what many YEC believe.
My contention on the no-death was that the Bible does not say there was no animal death either. But, it was to say that the no-death position is a qualified position not a total position. They have to qualify it by defining it as no physical death for creatures that have blood or that are animals. BTW, not all animals have blood. Lobsters, for example, have hemolymph which can go from clear to a very light blue.
But some of the talks I heard years ago clearly implied no-death as an absolute, saying that death did not exist before the Fall. If you are the eaten plant, then certainly, as an organism you are now dead. Yes, God, said that they could eat vegetation, so some type of organism death did exist.
The point is iMonk’s point, which is Bible interpretation.
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I’m with Greg–It’s awfully high and mighty in here. The views in this little part of the comments are mean-spirited, and highly dubious. You think of technology in the very limited terms of laboratories and iPhones. Technology is also animal husbandry, automotive repair, warfare, and lots of other dirty jobs that it’s doubtful you could do, and yet is done well by a lot of Independent Baptists. That would be the main group of KJV-swinging, YEC-forth-holding people I know. There’s a bunch here in Texas. They may be wrong, and I can’t be one of them, but they’re mostly good folks. You have no call to be dismissive of them generally.
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My point exactly.
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I think that John Walton’s new book “The Lost World of Genesis One” does more to dismantle the faulty exigesis of the Young Earth/Genesis 1 is science camp than any other book out there. It’s easily one of the top books I’ve read this decade.
He’s a conservative, evangelical professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College and his approach to the text is very serious, literal, and scholarly (appropriates all the best knowledge of Ancient Mid-East Culture).
I know Scot McKnight has been doing a review of the book recently as well. Here’s the amazon.com link. http://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254866362&sr=8-1
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Fundamentalist preacher for the males.
Quiverfull breeding stock for the females.
Just like Wahabi/Salafi Islam.
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Or above… for Kevin N.
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And don’t forget “The Earth is Flat!”, the Victorians’ “Zetetic” defense of Scripture (TM) against Godless Science (TM).
Because the Bible says the Earth is flat and four-cornered, with the sky a solid Firmament that opens to let the Waters above fall as rain. Do you Deny SCRIPTURE (TM)?
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Gary, read verse 5 again in the first chapter of Genesis. The Hebrew word “yom” is used for “day” twice: in the reference that you cited (“evening and morning, the first day”) it can certainly mean 24 hours; but the verse also says “God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness he called ‘night'”.
In this case, the word “day”, or yom, can mean a 12-hour period (more or less, depending on summer or winter).
The point being that a thorough (and even literal) interpretation can yield various meanings.
See also Kevin N/GeoChristian, at 3:54 PM, below.
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After reading this, I assume you will be sitting in the smoking section in the afterlife.
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I think that the point people are trying to make is that is is a historical narrative that was written the way historical narrative was written at that time. Most was written following a long oral tradition because there wasn’t a lot of physical writing done. The beauty of the cadence of the Genesis account surely comes from the fact that it was done in such a way as to allow easy memorization and repetition, because it wasn’t even written down for a very long time. Do you take all the numers written in the Old Testament as literal, such as the number of men in each tribe? If so, it’s pretty convenient they all ended in zero. To really read the Bible, I think you need to know a little something about how things were recorded in specific cultures at specific times. If not, you can come away with some pretty strange ideas.
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Out in SoCal, we had a “Brother Judd” and his wife “Disco Queen”. According to eyewitnesses, Bro Judd looked like your typical crazy street preacher in ill-fitting suit, ten-gallon hat, and big KJV Bible and Disco Queen was described as “a five-foot Guinea Pig dressed like a Fifties teenager — poodle skirt, bobby sox, and pompoms.”
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Actually, Aristotle’s argument holds up quite well. A Designer–by definition–exists outside of the design, not within it. Your argument implies that the Designer is within the design.
Uh oh…
You could make the argument that a “superverse” exists that has a Designer in it that created the universe, and within it the universe’s Designer was created by yet another Designer, but really all you’ve done is expand the meaning of “universe”, and “Designer” to include something that we would otherwise call, I don’t know, say, metaphysical…spiritual, even.
Not even Dawkins could escape this; which is why he focuses on the the gene, a jealous, thing that is everywhere, influences everything, constantly driving the design forward, and yet is for all intents and purposes invisible. Sounds like a god to me.
Again, evolution provides a mechanism to show the lack of need for a personal god, not for any and all gods.
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My assessment of the situation is this: Fundamentalists are seeing the same decline in evangelicalism that Michael sees, and, backed into a corner, they’re lashing out indiscriminately. — Matt
Nothing is as dangerous as a wounded animal that’s been cornered.
“When on Death Ground, FIGHT.” — Sun Tzu
“The wildest fantasy fiction ever written appears in a wartime country’s media the day before that country loses the war.” — James Dunnigan (prefiguring Baghdad Bob)
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The approach is obvious if rather sad. Deny the possibility of any valid middle positions. If one does not hold the approved “true†position then one must hold the absolute opposite position, even if one is stating a position that disagrees with the absolute opposite position.
There is only doubleplusgoodthink or doublepluscrimethink; doubleplusINGSOC or doubleplusgoldsteinism. Nothing else.
“Here Ahura-Mazda, There Ahriman!”
— Ancient Persian battle cry
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The idea that Lions and Tigers and Bears only ate grass and vegetation before Adam and Eve sinned is stupid. — William
Then whatever you do, do NOT read Left Behind: Volume 13 (set AFTER the Second Coming — nice trick), where Everything Has Been Miraculously Returned to the Edenic State, including everything — EVERYTHING — becoming Total Vegan. Vegan Lions, Vegan Tigers, Vegan Bears, Vegan Carnivores of every species, including Resurrected Humans with their “Steaming Piles of Fresh Produce, Drenched in Butter!”
Oh, and back on the original subject of this thread, Volume 12 has the Sheep-and-Goats Judgment scene. Plagarized word-for-word from the Bible, with one exception: The litmus test for “Begone from Me ye Cursed into Everlasting Fire” is believing in Evolution.
Are YEC people suggesting that carnivores EVOLVED because of the fall?!?? — William
No, they’re Naming and Claiming that the Fall miraculously morphed what had been “herbivorous carnivores” into carnivores. (I am NOT making that up; I got turned into a pile of rocks once for theorizing that Death and carnivory preceded the Fall, based on the Bible-tract definition of Death re Adam as “Spiritual Separation from God”.)
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The YEC crowd usually extols preachers like Spurgeon and Mcgee, neither of whom were in the Y EC camp. Young earthers can’t even read an encyclopedia with out undo conflict.
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Jason writes, “What I find interesting is the insistence that it is the YEC folks who are extreme and fundamentalist. Most people, when holding a viewpoint, hold it with some extreme. Ask people who believe in evolution–they are also quite extreme in their thinking.”
Exactly. I find no more extreme insistence than that I get from heliocentrists. And from those who deny that there are waters above the dome of heaven (Gen 1:6-8). But more than being extended grace by these hardcore heliocentrists, I’d like them to show me (with biblical exegesis and evidence) why my biblical cosmology is wrong.
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Most notable example is St. Augustine, who believed that all creation was done simultaneously and that the six days represented a logical framework.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis
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I suppose that depends on how much one wants to witness, doesn’t it? If I were trying to disprove Christianity, I start from the Herod’s decree to kill babies. 😉
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Andrew, again, even in Chapter 3 the story can be “true” without being “literal.” It can be the story of human beings coming to understand right and wrong and along with that, they come to understand guilt and they find themselves guilty. God does not want them to eat from the tree of life and live forever with guilt “issues” so he sends them from the garden so that they do not become immortals burdened with guilt. He is doing them a favor, even though that favor means that people will have to work hard to live. So, the story is that humans once were innocent and doing what they were supposed to do to be humans under the care of God. Then, somehow, they took a “wrong turn” and lost that connection to God that had guided them in the past. But God did not leave them lost forever. He had a plan, so to speak. That plan was Jesus. God came in the flesh through Jesus so that he could lead humans back into communion with him.
I won’t go on any further as I will get posting too much. And I also realize that many Christians may not see this the same as I do and I can live with that. I can also live with the possibility that I can be very wrong about all this. I choose to focus on Jesus. That’s where the life is.
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I only ask because the global warming folks (or climate change or whatever the term is today) generally talk in the same way about the case for global warming as they do about the case for evolution” “It’s a scientific consensus,” “There’s really no debate among scientists.”
Full disclosure: I don’t know what I think about global warming really, but I’m rather skeptical and find it suspicious that those who most trumpet the fear are often those who stand to make good amounts of money from the whole thing. Regarding evolution, I’m not really on the fence, but (to mix metaphors) I’m not sure how comfortable I feel in the theistic evolution side of the pool yet.
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Well said, Curtis.
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Wormy. Very wormy. 😉
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The idea that Lions and Tigers and Bears only ate grass and vegetation before Adam and Eve sinned is stupid. They don’t have plant-eater teeth–Are YEC people suggesting that carnivores EVOLVED because of the fall?!??
Besides, it was Man that fell. It was man that was cursed. Except for the serpent being cursed, the animals should have continued as they were. I don’t understand where the phrase “It’s a fallen world” really comes from, when it is man who fell….
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The Creed doesn’t ask us to confess to a certain view of creation. It confesses we believe God created. The “to die for” is God created not God created the earth a few thousand years ago or even a million years ago.
God created, period.
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Actually, ‘science is evil’ is precisely what a great many YEC are saying. Compartmentalization is the answer. I would be inclined to bet that few genuinely accomplished, genuinely technically and scientifically competent YECers are among the militant.
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Here’s what Spurgeon had to say in his sermon “The Power of the Holy Ghost”:
“We know not how remote the period of the creation of this globe may be–certainly many millions of years before the time of Adam. Our planet has passed through various stages of existence, and different kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been fashioned by God.”
Answers in Genesis added this footnote to the text on its web site (http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/02/26/power-of-holy-ghost):
“Bracketed text indicates that as brilliant as Spurgeon was, even he did not understand the age of the earth issue.”
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So, what does everybody think about global warming, then?
Or is that too big a can of worms? Apologies if it is.
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My wife and I disagree on this issue still, though the fact that our pastor is on my side has helped alleviate her fears that I’m running headlong into atheism.
Sidling, she might suspect, but not running headlong.
Our kids hear both our views, which is more than my wife was happy with a few years ago. I think she’s coming around.
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What a futile argument between The Body.
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I think the key phrase in WebMonk’s post is “consisten to THEM”. My brother is a very accomplished electronics engineer, who helps do the testing for jet airplanes, and a very avid young earther. He sees no conflict, here, he thinks the YEC position is just better science. Call it goofy, OK, but it works for him, and from what I can tell, he is a very competent employee.
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I would also be interested in pre-darwin books, theologians and authors that were not so literal with Genesis.
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Then they’d miss by about thirty years, give or take. 😉
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Sure, there are cows left. It’s not like it ate the one and only cow. Cows eat grass and the grass dies in their stomach. Lions eat cows and the cows die at their claws and teeth.
Either way, things are dying. Why do you say “that’s just a patch of grass; there’s more”? It’s just as accurate to say “that’s just a cow; there are more.” On what difference do you base that “no death” only applied to humans and animals rather than to plants too?
The passages that speak of “no death” before the Fall certainly don’t refer to animals or plants, specifically or obliquely. If we say “no death” applies to the physical death of animals, it is just as supported (or not supported) to say it applies to plants.
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I think you’re missing her point.
“A[W]hen the ‘correct’ interpretation of a particular biblical claim does actually conflict directly (rather than metaphorically) with scientific evidence, then which – the Bible or our scientific understanding of what informs the claim – must come into alignment with the other?”
For example: find the remains of Jesus. The point is Christianity makes real, physical claims about Jesus in this world that are central to the story, and the power therein. That means that, technically, those claims can be proved or disproved. She’s not talking theories, per se. There can only either be bodily remains here, or not.
If time travel is every invented, I bet 0 A.D. will be the first destination.
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¡¡¡¡¡¡ MUCHÃSIMAS GRACIAS!!!
Thank you very much.
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No, Aranion, that’s a second cause. The first cause would be that which created God. But wait; that would make that creator a second cause because something would have had to create the first creator of God.
Uh oh…
This Aristotelian argument has long been discredited. If the assumption that design needs a designer is to hold up, then who (or what) designs the designer? This is exactly the fatal flaw in Intelligent Design – flaw in the sense that such an assumption is not a scientific claim but a religious one, making ID a creationist rather than a scientific assertion.
Evolution provides us with a mechanism to show why design occurs without any need for a supernatural designer.
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Your English is fantastic. Far better than my Spanish.
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Sorry, that should have been “… before the rise of the Theory ….”
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You write, “Most people, when holding a viewpoint, hold it with some extreme.” I completely agree. I often sense raw hatred and hostility from both sides of the debate and there is no need. We are all kin under Christ and I am sure that God knows more than we do. Let God be truthful and every man a liar.
I have a friend and brother who is hard-core Pentecostal Fundamentalist and I have come to believe that it was wrong of me to aggressively attempt to tear down his theology in order to fit him into some sort of scientific mold. We both live under God’s grace and I would rather seek common ground, where we both agree that the love of Jesus is sorely needed. I pray rather that God use Him as he is to reach people for Christ and that it would be God, not me and my arrogance, that would change whatever theology He saw fit to change.
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Thanks. .
It would be interesting to know more about this authors.
Can you recommend to me some preDarwin authors who had interpreted Genesis as a theological poem and not as a historical account?
[¿Me podrÃas aconsejar autores cristianos predarwinianos (cuanto más antiguos, mejor) que lean el texto de Génesis como un poema teológico y no como una narración histórica? Muchas gracias]
Excuse me for my awful english.
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Translation (apologies for my rusty Spanish):
Michael, I agree fully with your reading of the text, but why didn’t Christians (of any tradition) realize the literary kind of Genesis before to rise the Theory of Evolution (to which, certainly, almost all the Christians were opposed stubbornly at the beginning)? Recognizing, our way to read the Bible has changed because the science has obliged us it.
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It depends on what you mean by “literal Adam and Eve”. I believe in a literal Adam and Eve, but I don’t think Genesis 1-3 is a scientific description of them. Some would say that I don’t then believe in a “literal” Adam and Eve. I then start using smaller words and speak more slowly to explain basic concepts of what the word “literal” means. (it means, yes there really was an Adam person)
The Bible isn’t trying to give a scientific description of Adam and Eve, and so my detailed knowledge of the scientific details about him are very limited and are mostly extrapolation. My extrapolations are not something will hang my hat on as Gospel Truth ™.
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Read all of Genesis as a creation myth, and compare it to many others, and I think you may find some remarkable yet common wisdom in it. It is filled with very typical symbols and available to symbolic interpretation that can be quite meaningful. For example, eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil requires a change in cognitive states – from the sleep of blissful ignorance to the revelation that for a life to be truly lived, one must leave the Garden and accept the necessary pain and suffering that accompanies it.
I know that a favourite reading of Genesis is about the Fall. Heretic that I am, I suggest that one can also read it with an eye towards ascending into knowledge about how to live well rather than as a story that may be literally true (which of the two creation stories in Genesis, I wonder?) or a story about why every person comes broken due to the separation from God blamed on women.
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“Day” (Heb. yom) is used figuratively at least once in the first creation account. In Genesis 2:4, “day” refers to the entire creation week. If it can be used figuratively once in the passage, it opens the doors for its figurative use elsewhere.
“…in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” Gen 2:4 ESV
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I personally know many YEC people who are extremely competent in their fields and are very firmly employed by secular groups – biology, computers, physics, math, medicine, etc.
The way they view things varies from person to person, but there is no giant Multiple Personality Disorder effect which affects them and the relation of their YEC views with their work. They have a worldview that is internally consistent to themselves, and which is pretty darned consistent from what I can tell too. They don’t reject science (well, some do, but not all).
Consistency doesn’t equate to accuracy, but it’s not the bizarre juxtaposition that you seem to describe like a vegetarian flipping meat burgers.
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“Dr. Dino” (Kent Hovind) doesn’t have a real doctorate either.
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Luis,
Your analysis of what Christians historically have believed about Genesis is a bit off. There have been many Christians that have read Genesis less than literally many hundreds of years before the theory of evolution was developed. Its probably accurate to say that the rise of modernism resulted in the widespread “Genesis as science text or bust” attitude.
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Thanks, that was beautiful. (even if unintentionally so) I love how science shows us that God is so infinitely BIG (bad word, I don’t have another). This is the best bit: He has “a moment-by-moment personal interest in what you and I and six and half billion others do and think at this exact second.” Only an infinitely large God, of infinite love, unbound by our dimensions of time and place could do this. So much for the atheist’s friend, the “little old man on the cloud”.
Thanks for such a faith-building comment!
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The Bible does not say that there was no animal death before the Fall. It is a doctrine that the young-Earth creationists read into the text. Take a look at the passages used to “prove” that animals did not die before the Fall (Gen 3, Rom 5, Rom 8, 1 Cor 15). None of them say anything whatsoever about animal death!
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Some very cool research in astronomy, cosmology, and quantum physics seems to be quite strongly pointing to a very distinct beginning before which there was truly NOTHING – no time, no space, no quantum fluctuations, no ANYTHING that is related* to our universe.
Yet somehow our universe exists, and this points me to believe (just on the science) that there must be a God of some sort who began the universe but is not a part of the universe or related* to it. The Bible certainly expands more and looks at how God invades the universe and makes Himself related to it, but just on the existing science, it seems to me that there is very strong evidence of a God who created out of nothing.
* by “related”, this means there was not an existing framework from which the universe developed in some way, nor a framework within which God and the universe exist both exist
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I’m absolutely open to “thorough and wide-eyed examination.” My faith is not built on a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2, but if the account in chapter 3 is not literal, then that crumbles my faith. The entire Bible is the story who’s conflict starts in Genesis 3. If that’s not true, the entire Bible simply becomes symbolic, not the story of a God who intervened in history to save mankind from their sin.
And if the story of Adam and Eve isn’t literal, at what point does the Genesis narrative (or even the Bible) become literal?
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One thing I never got with deistic evolution is when Adam and Eve got into the picture. Did they evolve? Who were their parents? If they evolved, where was everyone else at the time of the fall?
You’re assuming a literal Adam and Eve and Eden. I’m guessing most – or at least many – people who support theistic evolution hold the story of the Fall as presented is symbolic, not literal.
What if evolution was God’s chosen means to create a race of sentient, self-aware creatures upon whom He could imprint His likeness? I’m guessing theistic evolution would say that at some point, humanity reached the point where they could grasp or handle being more than just animals.
Genuine question for you: what happens to your faith is the YEC, three-day creation model was shown to be wholly untenable? How much of your trust and belief in God is based on a specific interpretation of Genesis? I’m not asking to be rude or disrespectful – but I really think this is a “Jar 4” topic (as referenced in an above post), theologically, and one that should be open to thorough and wide-eyed examination.
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Just want to add my name to the list of folks saying “thank you.”
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A Dr. Humphreys is doing a version of this in Answers In Genesis. There are a lot of problems (which doesn’t preclude it from being accurate, it might just mean there’s more work to do on it) and AiG seems to be stepping back from the details of his explanation and presenting it as a possibility that is being pursued rather than definite fact.
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I’m able to read English but I’m not able to write it. I hope someone translate this. Thanks 🙂
(In Spanish)
Michael, coincido plenamente con tu lectura del texto, pero ¿por qué ningún cristiano (de ninguna tradición) se dio cuenta del género literario de Génesis antes de que surgiera la Teoria de la Evolución (a la que, por cierto, casi todos los cristianos se opusieron tenazmente al principio)?
Reconozcámoslo, nuestra manera de leer la Biblia ha cambiado porque la ciencia nos ha obligado a ello.
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I won’t defend the YEC take on “science’, but I think you are over reaching with what type of people these folk would be, given their views in this one , admittedly important, area. I think you are overstating the case, and it’s not as if they are collectively saying ‘science is bad’, or ‘science is evil’, and the high majority of them I’ve met were accomplished , maybe not spectacularly, at what they did for a living. Blame them for compartmentalizing, but they were not anti-modern, or anti-progress. They knew their way around a computer, and a classroom.
Disagree, fine, but I’d avoid the caricatures.
Gregj R
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Exactly. For thousands of years, geocentrism was the traditional creation view, and it took hundreds of years (the LCMS taught it into the 20th century) for everyone (or nearly everyone) to shift away from the traditional view of what the Bible said to a more accurate and truthful view of what the Bible said.
Give this some time. In another couple hundred years, I figure this debate will be sort of like the old geocentrism debate – only existing in the far fringes.
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In the same say, evolution and age of the Earth debates don’t really impact most people’s lives, and as many Christians on here have stated in various ways, these theories in no way proves or disproves the existence of God, or whether God created the universe.
Although…
What most of them are missing in their arguments, and what I’ve been missing until just now (while wondering, gosh, what does impact me? How do I rate them?) is that it does disprove the theory that our existence can only be caused by a power that is interested in us. And if that power is not interested in us, why should I pay it any mind more than the 150B galaxies?
The answer is because Jesus was sent. We’re told this by the Bible. And He, via various agents, tells us to read the Bible; that it’s True, and good for instruction. Instructions on, for example, how to know who is Jesus. But some instructions direct us literally, and some by being literary…
The argument of my team just doesn’t seem very cogent right now.
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Which is the “non-traditional view”?
To me, (in the UK) modern, American YEC looks like the “non-traditional view”. The “plain reading” of Genesis 1 YEC sees is nothing like the “plain reading” (glorious liturgical language) I saw in Genesis 1 growing up in the traditional, orthodox church (various denominations) in the UK. Without exposure to YEC, their “plain reading” was never apparent to me. One culture’s “plain reading” is anything but plain to another culture- you don’t have to go as far as the Ancient Near East to prove that.
I never met any YEC’ers for the first 20+ years of my Christian life (I rather thought they were a media myth) and was totally perplexed when I first met someone who held this view (he was also KJV-only, another new one on me!)
Anyway, back to “the real issue… whether or not the non-traditional creation view is compatible with Scripture”: I don’t see how the YEC reading is compatible with scripture, but I read scripture through cultural lenses (British Christian heritage) that makes the “word for word” literalism of YEC very foreign to me, so I realise I may be very wrong. I hope not. The YEC god seems a stunted one to me.
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I think it has been mentioned here that looking at Genesis 1 as a scientifically precise description of the Creation violates the genre, style, method, and other details about the passage.
Using Genesis as a detailed scientific text will get you a 24-hour day (sort of), but using Genesis that way is like taking “She Walks In Beauty” by Byron as a manual to the physical aspects of sex. (just as an example of using a text wildly outside its intended use) Or, to use the example InternetMonk used, taking the passage in Revelation as a scientific description of the physical events of the End Of The World ™.
Yes, if we assume Genesis 1 is a scientific, I-Was-There-With-A-Video-Camera description, then at least some of the days are 24-hour days.
BUT
Using Genesis 1 in that way violates just about everything in that passage – its style, genre, literary methods, etc. Read InternetMonk’s post – shoving a foreign construction onto text (taking Rev 6:12-13 or Gen 1 as a physical description) when it is obviously intended otherwise, will get a false result.
Sure, if someone wants to yank Gen 1 wildly out of context and style, then sure, it looks like 6 24-hour days of creation.
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definately a good one – I read it after I read Michael’s essay the first time, and it was outstanding…
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I was taught while growing up that the earth is young and that all things were created in three days. I still hold this position, but I can see how others would disagree with me.
One thing I never got with deistic evolution is when Adam and Eve got into the picture. Did they evolve? Who were their parents? If they evolved, where was everyone else at the time of the fall?
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Except for the fact that the sun, by which we have a 24 day was not created until day 4.
Also for those who are gap theorists, there is unlimited time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:3.
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according to wikipedia he has a “bachelor’s degree in applied science (with an emphasis on environmental biology) from the Queensland Institute of Technology”
Still no doctorate in science, nor any graduate work in science, so the point is still the same… (and is why I’m still aggrivated at my highschool and Answers in Genesis…)
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Suggested reading, with the proviso that I haven’t read it yet (just bought it, but it looks helpful, and may help this conversation): Langdon Gilkey’s ‘Maker of Heaven and Earth.’ (1965). The author’s doctoral thesis was concerned with the relationship of creatio ex nihilo to process philosophy, and I’m told that he deals well with the whole arena of creation (likely in the broader sense of the word), physicality, and what I view as a increasing modern trend to a neo-gnostic view of the material creation.
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but the sun and moon aren’t created til the 4th day. What marked a 24 hour day?
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The picture at the top is priceless. I’ll bet the ape has tenure!
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So before the fall all animals only ate plants?
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That’s a good question. Manual labor and retail come to mind. Oh, and fundamentalist preacher.
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I always saw the Big Bang as the evidence that the universe had a beginning and believe that God cause that beginning (eg he created). Basically, the Big Bang is physical evidence of creation.
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Are you geo-centric? If so, why not? It’s the plain, literal reading of 67 different texts.
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Just curious… Was there an evening and morning before the sun was created?
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Well, something had to create the universe, and that something could only be God. To me, it’s that simple.
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This is pretty easy for me: because 150B galaxies that can be hidden by a grain of sand just don’t impact my life in any meaningful way. I suspect this is true of nearly everyone. My country is fighting a war on the other side of the world. That does not alter my life in any discernible way, but is something interesting to think about sometimes; like galaxies, or sunsets. For every one person inspired to be a scientist, 100 love the heck out of their local football team. You might argue that peoples’ priorities are out of whack, but you can’t argue what their interests actually are.
I think Michael is describing what engaged him intellectually and emotionally; not just what could produce the deepest thought of the reality of our physical insignificance.
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What I find interesting is the insistence that it is the YEC folks who are extreme and fundamentalist. Most people, when holding a viewpoint, hold it with some extreme. Ask people who believe in evolution–they are also quite extreme in their thinking. The more I read, the closer I come to Old Earth Creationism (a la Alvin Plantiga), but try to extend a bit of grace to others holding to a different viewpoint.
I am going through the leadership training with our church and they talk about unity and the “4 jars” Things that are in jar 1 are worth fighting over (e.g., Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection) whereas you move down through the jars, the more one should allow for alternative perspectives among believers. For example, views of eschatology may fall into jar 4, views of creation Jar 3.
Of course the challenge comes when some believers want to chuck everything into jar 1 (legalism) or everything into jar 4 (excess license).
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Right; and in Genesis God is saying that each day of creation was a morning and an evening. God doesn’t leave much room for thousands of years in Genesis 1.
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There are many different views. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe still holds to a pretty literal interpretation of Genesis, but disagrees with YEC about the interpretation of the term days and the genealogies among other things.
Other views among Old Earthers range from progressive creationism to theistic evolution, which really accounts for many many views of interpretation of the science and the Bible.
As for old ages. Again, among old earthers, you have many views. I believe Hugh Ross argues that the old ages are literal and factual, while others argue that they are symbolic. For the symbolic view, see: (Note it’s a direct link to a pdf)
Click to access PSCF12-03Hill.pdf
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What would you do if you were hiring an employee and you found out one of the candidates was a YEC who more or less rejected science?
You can’t or would you want to make a decision based on someone’s religious beliefs, but if the job is in a technical field and the candidate doesn’t buy into science, it’s hard to see how they’re going to work out.
It’s like a vegetarian flipping burgers at McD’s. Sure, they can check their brains at the door and blindly do what they’re told in opposition to their beliefs, but eventually their internal principles (if they are indeed deeply held) are going to win out over your external motivation.
I had a lady who worked for me who was a Janist. Those beliefs are pretty out there, and I got lectures about killing things like wasps in my office, but on the other hand there was an orientation toward learning in general, including science. Which is critical, because it was a technology R&D job.
But it struck me as I read this post that certain Christians just simply would not work in that job (assuming that they’d even be in the pool).
Then I began wondering just what jobs would be a good fit for a person in this day and age who rejected science.
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The Big Bang says nothing about creation. It merely describes the state of matter-energy in the beginning by reverse-extrapolating from the current state of matter-energy as observed by astronomers.
As to how that matter-energy came into existence or why it started the way it did, science cannot address, as such a question lies beyond our realm of inquiry.
Similarly, if I found grenade fragments all over a field, I could theorize that there once exploded a whole grenade somewhere in the middle of the field, even quite accurately, but as to how and why the grenade exists, I cannot know.
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So my question to those who disagree with me (sincere question, not rhetorical) is how we can say that God creates in the context of such mechanisms as a big bang?
First Cause. God is the designer, architect, sustainer and reason for existence. I’m not the best person to articulate this point of view, but part of the idea is that no effect can be greater than its cause. In order for something to have caused the universe, that something must be greater than its effect.
I’d encourage you to widen your definition of “creation”, as well as doing some unfiltered reading on the arguments against YEC. As Christians, our faith stands or falls on the resurrection of Christ, not on the age of the earth.
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The iMonk writes I learned that scripture must be rightly interpreted. It must be understood within its world, and interpreted rightly in mine. If I came away with any suspicions that the young earth creationists might be wrong, it came from my developing an appreciation for Biblical interpretation, not from the Biology lab. Secular science didn’t turn my head.
Really? The fossil record didn’t make you perk up your ears to question the YEC? The geological record of deep time didn’t twig your concern? Evolutionary theory didn’t make you ponder our very recent ancestral roots within the homonid family ignored completely by YEC? Astrophysics didn’t make you realize how insignificant a speck in space the Earth is and how infinitesimally minuscule are our daily concerns in the time frame of the vastness of the cosmos? You never really pondered the psychology of a species that permits such a remarkable arrogance to think that a creator being of it all – over such immensity of space and throughout all of time – must be interpreted through biblical studies to have a moment-by-moment personal interest in what you and I and six and half billion others do and think at this exact second? Genetics and the access to the genetic code of all living creatures didn’t make you marvel at how all life on Earth past and present is directly linked?
It was, rather, an appreciation for biblical interpretation that made you suspicious of the YEC claims? Oh my. That must of been some kind of dreadfully boring science you were exposed to. Or maybe you are writing about your suspicions in such a way so as to least offend those who have no problem offending the diligent work of tens or hundreds of thousands of dedicated scientists in all these fields of research who strive to bring us knowledge. Let’s just put their efforts aside for the moment and lift up the Bible and the correct interpretation instead as the cause of suspicion. How very politic of you.
To make up a fraction of the dullness that those particular science classes apparently offered you, let me assign you an easy piece of homework. Find a piece of sand… a single grain… and take it with you outside tonight. Take that grain of sand between your thumb and first finger, hold it at arm’s length and locate a section of the night sky that appears dark to you. I want you to remember this: that that speck of darkness now covered by the grain of sand is blocking out one hundred and fifty billion galaxies. Then I want you to justify why your certainties about the nature of the creator found through the correct interpretation of the Bible in any way, shape or fashion counters our collective colossal ignorance of just these one hundred and fifty billion galaxies… places where life and thoughts about the divine might be significantly, substantially, and substantively different than any our race has been able to even imagine.
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I have great respect for young earth creationist as most of my friends are. I was too for a long time and struggled to remain one for many years.
With that said, the bottom line is that we Christians should be a lover of truth. The evidence for a very old earth, in my personal opinion, is overwhelming and not just the results of an evolutionist’s conspiracy. God spoke truth in his word and in reality so we must find a way to find harmony between the two. You can be a young earth believer, and that doesn’t bother me at all. I still can love and respect you as a brother . . . but you have to reciprocate. That is where I often have trouble . . . being suggested that I’m wrong at best but not a true believer in Christ at worst.
The greatest harm, in my opinion, is insisting that young earth is part of the essentials of belief. This harms two brothers/sisters.
One is the adult believer who believes in the old earth but is curious about Christ. The young earth becomes the stumbling block for him/her. I have a close personal friend, Chris, in this boat. His wife is a believer and goes to my church. His father-in-law is a staunch young-earth insister . . . who is an elder at my church. Chris is a PhD geologists. There is no way he could throw his mind out the window and believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old. Yet his father-in-law says that the young earth pill is one he must swallow in order to become a true Christian. I think this would outrage Paul in the same way that Peter’s insistence on circumcision did.
The latter example also troubles me a great deal and that’s our youth. When we teach them in Sunday School that the Bible is clear that God created the earth in six literal days, six literal thousand years ago and that doctrine is equal to our other doctrines (like Jesus being God and dying on the cross for our sins) . . . then when they learn the geological truth . . . knowing that they have been hoodwinked about that . . . they will indeed throw away the whole bath and baby as well. If their church-going parents lied to them about Santa, then they lied about the young earth . . . what stopped them from lying about Jesus?
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Well, except that Saint Peter says that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years. In other words, “who knows how long a day is to God” is what Saint Peter is saying.
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Well, except you are positing the wrong “either/or.” Neither “scientists” nor “theologians” are positing that they know all truth. When there is a conflict of evidence, or when there is a conflict of interpretation, the first question one needs to ask is whether one’s assessment is the correct one. Let me give you two examples.
1. Pick any theological conflict, let’s say Calvinism vs Arminianism. It is impossible for both sides to be correct as classically stated. This gives several basic possibilities. One side could be totally right and the other totally wrong. Both sides could be totally wrong. Both sides could have elements of accuracy and elements of inaccuracy in their interpretation of Scripture. Neither side may have sufficient information at their disposal to reach a valid conclusion. If you read back, I just gave you four possibilities for the relationship between those two theological camps.
2. Pick any theoretical scientific conflict. There are an analogous four possibilities for the relationship between the two scientific camps.
Note that in both examples one and two there are two things that are constant. In example one, the same Bible is used. In example two, the same data is parsed. And, yet, there is disagreement.
Rev. Eggleton has pointed out that this leaves plenty of room for the Bible and science to interact, since neither side is claiming absolute truth for its interpretation of either Scripture or data. However, this point has gotten lost in the war, and both sides tend to state their positions in absolute terms. Those who are in the middle between the extremes then get jumped on by both sides.
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I’m a young earth creationist, but find it telling that there has never been an ecumenical creed which defined a time and doctrine of creation. So I’m perfectly willing to admit that some folks I disagree with or think are in error are still brothers and sisters in the faith.
However … in the Nicene creed we confess that we believe in God the “maker of heaven and earth.” If someone can’t confess that God created the universe, I think they are at least in danger of moving outside the bounds of orthodoxy.
So my question to those who disagree with me (sincere question, not rhetorical) is how we can say that God creates in the context of such mechanisms as a big bang?
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God gave us brains and He expects us to use them. He is the Great Artist and the Great Creator, and among His creations are language, poetry, metaphor, and brains that are capable of understanding them. The Know-Nothing Wing of evangelicalism has crippled our ability to share the Gospel with a needy and hurting world. They make me angry, and I think I’d better stop here before I write something Michael will have to moderate.
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Jason, Michael really articulates the heart of the view in his post: Genesis is not meant to be a scientific treatise on the origins of the universe. YEC treat the text as a literal, play-by-play description of how things came to be. Others treat it as theological poetry, written in the language of the times and meant to express the truth that all creation and life has its origin in God – without intending to be a factual listing of how creation was, well, created. And I can’t speak for anyone else, but yes, I view the extreme old ages as a literary device rather than literal fact of how long the patriarchs lived.
I can heartily recommend books by John Polkinghorne; he’s a physicist turned Anglican minister, and has written extensively on the ways science and faith overlap, differ, and complement each other. Some of them tend to be for the expert, so do some browsing on Amazon for an idea of which book would be best to read first.
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Fr. Ernesto, I would contend that we do not know when the Fall happened beyond the fact that it happened BEFORE Cain was conceived. Beyond that, I’m not aware of any extrabiblical text that portrays that it happened “shortly after creation.”
My apologies, Fr., but I’m not buying that.
And if a cow eats grass… well, that’s just a patch of grass; there’s more. If the lion eats the cow? There’s no cow left.
Besides, God did tell Adam that he and the woman could eat of ANY vegetation other than the tree in the middle of the Garden, no?
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I’m no where near as intelligent as you all are, but this post was amazing. I can’t put it in scientific terms like you can, but this is something I’ve been struggling with for a long time. The simple fact is that I love science, but to be a Christian and love science means that I have to (at least it seems) desire to prove Genesis 1 correct, and prove what happened to the dinosaurs (if I believe in them) doesn’t contradict anything in scripture.
I loved your point on letting the scripture be the scripture. I don’t have to prove anything. It is true because God spoke it. Yet we have to accept that God spoke it through people who wouldn’t have had the level of scientific understanding we do now. In fact, God would have had to tell the creation story to me in this manner as well, because I don’t understand the scientific theory either! And I hope that’s ok.
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I can eat an apple and the apple tree lives. Of course, I don’t actually EAT apples or any fruit. I have canines. They be for MEAT.
Fruit for dessert is like veggies and shrooms on pizza. What’s the point? 😛
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Michael,
I had the privilege of helping the son of a fundamentalist Baptist co-worker with this issue.
I do not believe in ‘young Earth’. I needed a way for him to reconcile the two views in a way that answered to both young Earth and old Earth ideas. I researched what I could find and discovered one source that helped in a type of ‘reconciliation’ of the two views. It came from an orthodox Jew, the author Gerald Schroeder.
To be brief, Wikipedia states that “Schroeder attempts to reconcile the Biblical account of a young earth with the scientific model of a world that is billions of years old using the idea that the perceived flow of time for a given event in an expanding universe varies with the observer’s perspective of that event. He attempts to reconcile the two perspectives numerically, calculating the effect of the stretching of space-time, based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity..”
Schroeder has articles on-line that can be helpful to those looking for a nexus between the spiritual and the scientific worlds.
I do not personally follow all of Schroeder’s ideas, but it is interesting that someone would try to do a reconcilation between two seemingly irreconcilable points of view. I understand that this is something that is inherent in Judaic scholarship.
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I think it could be looked at, poetically speaking, as a prefiguration of the cross. Plants give their lives so humans and animals can survive. God gives his life on the cross so that creation itself can survive.
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Since you mentioned the PCA in this, I’ve decided to link to the General Assembly’s official statement.
There are a host of acceptable ideas in the PCA & it’s left up to the presbyteries to decide what kind of weight they’ll give to what view.
http://www.pcahistory.org/creation/report.html
I beg your pardon if this seems a bit off topic, but, as I see it in the PCA (& I’m a licensed preacher in the denomination) to say it’s been painfully divided would be going a bit too far. Creationism is a hobby horse for some, much like homeschooling, the Sabbath & worship style.
I’m curious as to what your take on death Pre-Fall is & your take on the Flood.
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Certainly one and the same. I went to Purdue. As I understand it, he lived in Terre Haute, putting Purdue, ISU and U of I closest to him; which is why he most frequently went to those three campuses. He went all over the place though – Ohio State, Iowa, Minnesota. He got around.
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As I see it, that’s the point Michael is trying to make. Philosophical or theological truth, expressed via a certain literary methodology, is sometimes fundamentally different from the facts of the physical world.
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I went to Indiana University from ’92-’97 and I remember an evangelist named Max that would frequent the campus. I’ll never forget when he showed up on Gay Pride day. If this is the Max you speak of, he certainly put the fun back into fundamentalist.
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Conrad Hyers, The Meaning of Creation
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Michael,
Great post! You have written many of the thoughts I have had on this topic. I would love to know what books have shaped your thinking with regard to how Genesis 1-11 is interpreted. I have read some of the science authors you mention in the post. But I am looking specifically for resources from a Biblical perspective as opposed to scientific. Keep up the good work.
David
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I don’t think that’s really the debate Martha. The real issue is whether or not the non-traditional creation view is compatible with Scripture. Another issue is that some YEC need to calm down a bit. But, that has nothing to do with them denying the pre-existence of God and His creation of angels.
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What you are speaking of is called “the fallacy of the excluded middle.”
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When we’ve understood them both, however, they should speak to the same truth, albeit from different means and with a focus on a different facet of that truth. Neither will contradict the other, even if they answer different questions.
A fine sentiment. So when the ‘correct’ interpretation of a particular biblical claim does actually conflict directly (rather than metaphorically) with scientific evidence, then which – the Bible or our scientific understanding of what informs the claim – must come into alignment with the other? Oh my. A fine pickle here.
If you suggest either science or both need to be realigned, then you have effectively undermined the scientific method with theology. If you suggest a re-interpretation of the Bible alone, then you have effectively undermined its claim to Truth – and let’s assume that God and the biblical authors who channeled his Word cannot possibly be wrong. So we’re back to where we started: an important topic about wringing our intellectual hands over which – the Bible or science – is actually a legitimate authority about specific claims.
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I completely agree. I would change that.
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The Bible does make a distinction connecting significance with creatures that have blood. I am not pulling my Bible for this, but there are statements regarding the need to shed blood for the remission of sins and the Law speaks of the blood as having life in it. Given this, I think we are safe to distinguish between plants and animals on this issue.
Also, in the Creation account God instructs Adam & Eve to eat the vegetation, but later instructs to Noah that he can now eat animals (If my memory serves me right).
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I look at spiders and I just wonder. What did spiders eat in Eden if there was no death? And did God give them fangs and poison glands in the beginning? If so, why? Did the fruit need to paralyzed and killed? If not, did God make spiders carnivoirs after the fall? If so, why?
Forgive the silliness, but did Adam and Eve have bow movements before the fall? And why was Adam given the job of tending the Garden? If it was perfect, why would it need tending? And if Adam, plucked a branch from a bush or tree, did it … die?
Hmm … mysteries all. 😀
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“And for those of us who are still trying to purge ourselves of the fundamentalist theology that we started our faith in, are there any books you would recommend to present fresh perspectives?”
“A matter of days” and “The creator and the cosmos” by Hugh Ross are good starters.
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Don’t young earthers realize that God was around before Genesis? that there were a “host” of creatures already in existence.
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“who knows how long a day is to God?â€
In Genesis 1 it’s long enough for there to be an evening and a morning, which sounds strangely like 24 hours or so to me.
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Yes you must consider the literary nature of the text, but the literary nature of some texts dictates that they are in fact intended to be taken literally. For example, it is clear from Luke 1 that the Gospel of Luke is intended as a historical document. So the question then becomes what type of literature is the Pentateuch?
I would love, for many reasons, to whole-heartedly agree with theistic evolution, or some variant thereof. But, (1) the traditional view of creation seems to agree most with a plain reading of Scripture, (2) Adam is always treated in Scripture as a real historical factual person; there are very real textual and theological problems if he wasn’t, and (3) the Sabbath was grounded in creation; if it wasn’t a literal day then there are more textual and theological problems. I agree that YECs can be really really annoying and have a lot wrong with their apologetic, but I don’t see any alternatives that are Scripturally tenable.
By the way, your ending examples of how Revelation is not literal is a really bad example. Revelation is obviously apocalyptic literature, and it’s obviously John explaining what he saw without understanding it. So of course it’s not going to be literal, that’s the nature of apocalyptic literature. But the Pentateuch is primarily historical narrative with pieces of poetry throughout. The real question then is whether or not Genesis 1 fits more in the poetry vein, or some type of narrative that allows non-literal interpretation. A plain reading says no, but I’d certainly hear reasons why it should be non-literal.
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When I was in college, in the late ’80’s, we had a wandering campus evangelist by the name of Brother Max (Lynch was his last name) who came to preach on a regular basis. He had a regular circuit of a few large, midwestern universities (Purdue, University of Illinois, and Indiana State he visited weekly, I gather, with at least once- or twice-a-semester visits to many others.)
Max declared his belief that the bible was “the infallible, literal word of God”. He espoused far-right-wing ideas which would make the most extreme preachers and politicians of today look positively liberal – for example, it was his reading of the Bible that the government of the United States should establish (his words) “Homo Patrols” to seek out and summarily execute homosexuals. The man was as far to the extreme fundamentalist right wing as any religious conservative in the public eye today – and maybe farther.
But even Max wasn’t YEC. His view was, “who knows how long a day is to God?”
Michael, in the post above, makes a cogent, elegant, theologically and philosophically coherent argument which is summarily rejected out of hand by a large number of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. Something happened in the last decade or so, that this is suddenly so important to so may people. I suspect that the “YEC or the Highway” movement comes from fundamentalists being (against their own protestations) painfully aware of the impending collapse in evangelicalism which Michael sees and talks about. It’s one component of what I see as a generalized syndrome of the Fundamentalist Far Right as a group, frankly coming completely unhinged. Birtherism, YEC-uber-alles (credit to Headless Unicorn Guy for coining the phrase), Death Panels, Internment Camps – the ugly truth is that all of this is coming primarily (granted, not entirely – but primarily) from fundamentalist Christians. (My definition: fundamentalism is a subset of evangelicalism.)
My assessment of the situation is this: Fundamentalists are seeing the same decline in evangelicalism that Michael sees, and, backed into a corner, they’re lashing out indiscriminately. Whatever they have, they throw it at the onrushing tide of modernism/liberalism/whatever -ism they’re most concerned about today. I see this as having the potential to strengthen fundamentalism as a movement, in the short term, at the expense of broader evangelicalism’s long-term viability. I don’t see how it can do anything but accelerate the collapse which Michael has warned about.
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Michael, thank you for initiating this discussion. It is an important topic that church leaders and theologians probably devote too little earnest thought and study to.
Father Ernesto, you are exactly right in your observation of the stark either/or polemics of this debate. The place we must begin is with the text and our hermeneutic. Where I think things begin to slip up is when our reading of Genesis 1 allows for a new interpretation that could not have been understood or grasped by the original hearers. It is always dangerous when our modern interpretation is one that precludes any previous hearers from having understood the meaning. Fuller or deeper appreciation for the text and its truth is fine, but a radical reinterpretation, at odds with the oldest understanding is not.
I agree that the the Bible is not meant to be a scientific text, nor is scientific evidence needed to authenticate the Bible. When we’ve understood them both, however, they should speak to the same truth, albeit from different means and with a focus on a different facet of that truth. Neither will contradict the other, even if they answer different questions.
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I must say I haven’t really interacted with Old Earthers all that much. I know YEC isn’t the only view in Christianity, and I can respect Old Earthers, but I never understood the view completely. I haven’t really had a biology class since high school, and I went to a Christian high school so I didn’t get the evolutionary side of things. Can you recommend a few books as a place to start reading up on this stuff? Also, I would be interested to hear how old earthers interpret the really old ages of men in Genesis. Is there scientific evidence of people living longer lives at some point? Or are those ages another literary device of some kind?
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Calling Ken Ham a “scientist” is a bit of a stretch. He has zero formal training in any physical science, and he has zero experience in peer-review scientific research. He is an “educator” to be sure, and a propagandist.
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iMonk, thank you, thank you, thank you for this post. As wit the posts on doubt and reading the Bible, it should be required reading for all mentally-awake believers and seekers.
The amount of dishonesty, sleight of hand, and destructive rhetoric among YEC is appalling, as is their aggressive anti-intellectual appeal and emphasis among evangelicals and fundamentalists. This entire area – the role and domain of science – is one where the RCC has been consistently smarter and more humble than the Protestant side of the house (and I write that as a lifelong Protestant and former evangelical).
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I had never thought of that fact… I think it just blew my mind… I’d always been taught in highschool (thanks to the wonders of watching the entire 13? video series of Answers in Genesis) that there was no death before the fall, because Adam and Eve were vegetarians – and had NEVER thought about the fact that it meant we were ignoring plant death…
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thanks for reposting this again…. I still have major issues with the way that (at least my school – maybe the videos didn’t actually propagate the idea, I can’t remember) Ken Ham is made out to have a doctorate IN SCIENCE (when it is in reality a honorary doctorate). That alone has caused me to start studying the topic, because if you are so insecure about your position as to try and make believe that your “experts” are more expert than they really are, it makes me think there’s something fishy going on there. Oh well – at least we used to have fun watching the “Dr. Hammy” videos as some of the guys in my class called them – I mean who doesn’t want to watch a guy who looks like Abe Lincoln speak in a australian accent during class time?
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My impression is that the YEC position does not do well on this subject. Since the fall happened very shortly after creation, it can be argued that there was no death. However, here is the problem. You have to eat something living in order to keep on living, even if all one eats is grass or leaves. Cells have to die and be taken apart in your system in order for you to continue to metabolize. There is no free lunch
This means that either the animals did not need to eat or one is forced to classify certain types of living organisms as “deaths that do not count.” For instance, when a cow eats grass, the living cells in the plant are killed. Thus if one holds to a very strict “no death before the Fall” theology, then one must divide living cells into two camps, those that will not die and those that will die. Hmm, have fun with that. Or one has to argue on the basis of intelligence or . . .
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iMonk you said, “Yet the young earthers, fully committed to rejecting any evidence that might challenge their age of the earth, routinely equate the ‘Big Bang’ with atheism. When I refer to the ‘Big Bang’ and what we know about it from the Hubble telescope, I can count on at least one student asking me how I can believe in the “Big Bang†since that is what atheists believe?”
But, this type of approach is common not only in the area of creationism, but is an approach used to try to keep Christians in line in many other areas of life. Please note the current trend to charge that anything that Democrats do is socialism. The whole purpose is to keep Christians within the Republican camp. It spreads to theology. How often have you been accused of papism because you spoke positively about, say, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Liturgy, or whatever? The whole purpose is to stop you from going in that direction. It is like a preventive strike.
The approach is obvious if rather sad. Deny the possibility of any valid middle positions. If one does not hold the approved “true” position then one must hold the absolute opposite position, even if one is stating a position that disagrees with the absolute opposite position. And, somehow, that opposite position is always phrased in such a way that it clearly denies the truth of God. Any middle position is immediately deconstructed to purportedly show how one is simply on a slippery slope that inevitably will lead you to the ungodly position. Earlier I called it a preventive strike. I would also call it a scorched earth policy that attempts to deny any “sustenance” to any other view lest the “battle for truth” be somehow lost.
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Mike,
In young earth creationist, is there any death? If death is the result of sin, then the fall must have taken place prior to there being any death.
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Mike, thanks for posting this. After reading this twice, I think I am going to find your article on cleaning out our theological garbage and do some house cleaning. 🙂
And for those of us who are still trying to purge ourselves of the fundamentalist theology that we started our faith in, are there any books you would recommend to present fresh perspectives?
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I met a lady the other day who thought that since I label myself a creationist I must not believe in Dinosaurs. This a teacher of our kids in school, equated evolution to belief in dinosaurs, and creationism to denying that there ever was such a thing.
The gulf on both sides of this debate is more amazing to me then the Grand Canyon, which seems to defy the speed of light in its ability to age. I mean I live one year, but wake up one morning to a news report telling me that the Grand Canyon is not 17 million years older than it was reported to be just yesterday!
I share many of your same sentiments, Michael. I don’t know how old the earth is and don’t much care. Truth is I don’t think anyone knows. For me the idea of an expanding universe is one I want to investigate, I’m always asking myself though “what exactly is it expanding into then”?
I do believe in a basic six day creation. I hesitate to read into day some form of age. I think God knew what a day was when he told Moses a day. Yet I don’t think all the geological novelties of Utah, where I live, are easily explained away by a world wide flood either. I agree that the Bible isn’t a science text book. But I also question whether evolution is science.
And I do sometimes wonder if the “science” isn’t presented as such in an attempt to undermine scripture. That is I wonder how objective it is from its end, much of the time. I don’t see the Bible as a tool to disprove science. Neither do I see science as really able to disprove the Bible. I still, though, hesitate to write Genesis off, as I have heard many “theologians” do as just a poem. I tend to think that its truth is much more grounded to reality than just a sublime picture of the awesomeness of God or whatever.
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