Tag: Answers in Genesis

07/27/18

All About the Flood

Creative Commons license (CC by SA 3.0) for Noah’s Ark: The Flood begins by Phillip Medhurst

In July of 2016, Answers in Genesis opened the Ark Encounter in northern Kentucky. Ted Davis noted in his article, “Flooding the World with Creationism,” how a so-called “literal” interpretation of the Biblical Flood story was crucial for the view of Scripture held by Answers in Genesis and other young-earth creationists. Woven into their position is the idea of flood geology, namely that fossils are relics of the biblical Flood. This idea was first named and popularized by George McCready Price, a self-taught geologist and author, who claimed that the fossil-bearing rocks seen in the various geologic layers had been produced all at once in a single worldwide flood. But what if flood geology is wrong and there is a more “literal” way to read the Genesis account of the Flood?

Flood geology is one of the foundational beliefs of young earth creationism. Ted Davis noted that “commitment to the YEC duo of a young earth and flood geology remained on the far periphery of conservative Protestantism from the Civil War down to 1961.” In that year Henry Morris and John Whitcomb published The Genesis Flood, which supported Price’s flood geology and eventually birthed the modern young earth creationist (YEC) movement. “Ultimately, then, young-earth creationism is all about the Flood. That’s why AiG built the Ark Encounter.”

The significance of flood geology for young-earth creationism must not be missed: if most fossils were formed in the Flood, then they were not formed through eons of earth history and we cannot draw evolutionary inferences from the fossil record. Thus, the Ark Encounter represents two mightily important things in the minds of creationists. First, the biblical story is literally true—a man named Noah actually constructed a huge wooden boat to save all animal “kinds” from dying in a worldwide flood. Second, the Flood produced the fossils, so we have no scientific evidence that evolution actually happened.

Davis pointed to three threads woven into the YEC understanding of the Genesis Flood story. The first is the biblical understanding of the text. Did a man named Noah actually construct a huge wooden boat in order to save all animal “kinds” from the judgment of a catastrophic worldwide flood? The second thread is scientific. Is there credible scientific evidence to support the claims of flood geology? Are fossils and the geological record explained by a worldwide, catastrophic flood? The third thread pulls at the origins of flood geology and its relationship to a belief in a young earth. Where did they come from and are they peripheral or fundamental to Christian belief and the gospel?

An accumulation of scientific and historical evidence questions whether the biblical Flood account can be taken at face value. Genesis 6-9 clearly describes a global flood that destroyed all humans and land animals except those who were protected in a huge wooden boat built by a man named Noah. However, as BioLogos noted in “How should we interpret the Genesis flood account?” the scientific and historic evidence concludes “there has never been a global flood that covered the entire earth, nor do all modern animals and humans descend from the passengers of a single vessel.” When early geologists (many of whom were Christians) questioned whether the earth was created less than 10,000 years ago, flood geology claimed the earth’s complex geologic record was the result of a violent, global Flood.

So belief in a young earth and flood geology are joined together in the so-called “plain reading of Scripture” promoted by AiG and other young earth creationists. “All other approaches are claimed to require hermeneutical manipulations that ultimately undermine the simple and clear message of the Bible.” Gregg Davidson and Ken Wolgemuth, who are Christian geologists, said the following in “Christian Geologists on Noah’s Flood”:

Flood Geology proponents would have us believe that there is extensive evidence for a violent, earth-wide flood that is apparent if one is willing to consider the possibility. As Christian geologists, we have no philosophical objection to a cataclysmic event of divine origin, and have long been willing to consider evidence of such an event. What we have observed, however, is that evidence for Flood Geology is largely, if not entirely, non-existent. Given the placement and character of sedimentary deposits currently on earth, deposition by a single flood is not only implausible, but utterly impossible unless God temporarily suspended His natural laws in order to establish layers and fossil beds that would subsequently communicate a story vastly different than what actually happened.

Davidson and Wolgemuth presented evidence from salt deposits, tree rings, the fossil record and the sequence of layers in the Grand Canyon that challenges flood geology. YEC counters that these conclusions are the result of human miscalculation and error. Since science is a human endeavor, it is subject to all the errors of humanity, while the Bible is God’s Word. Yet as Longman and Walton commented: “To pit the Bible against science in this fashion is problematic.” They agree with BioLogos: “Because we take God to be the author of the “book of nature” as well as the divine inspirer of the book of Scripture, we believe the proper interpretation of the Flood story will not be in conflict with what we have discovered in the natural world.”

Orthodox Christianity has traditionally affirmed a “two book” view of God’s truth, believing “God reveals himself in both the Bible and in nature.” The study of nature through scientific means it “will never contradict the Bible when both are rightly understood.” While the Bible is true in all it intends to teach us, our interpretations of what it teaches may not be correct. “We need to be open to the possibility that we have wrongly understood a particular passage.” With regard to the Genesis Flood account, is there an interpretative method that does not present us with a forced choice between what the text says and what science tells us?

In their book, The Lost World of the Flood, Tremper Longman and John Walton commented how discussions of the early chapters of Genesis often center on whether the accounts in chapters one through eleven are mythology or history. Framing the question in this way as a dichotomous choice between what is real (history) and what is not real (mythology) not only fails to do justice to the biblical text, it imposes a modern understanding of both mythology and history upon the text.

Today, we often consider the label mythology to imply that what is reported is “not real.” But in the ancient world, they did not consider what we call their mythology to be not real. To the contrary, they believed their mythology to represent the most important reality—deep reality, which transcends what could be reported in terms of events that have transpired in the strictly human realm. Indeed, they further considered that even the events in the human realm, which we might label history, found their greatest significance in aspects of the event that human eyewitnesses could not see—the involvement of the divine hand.

So we should be hesitant to think in such dichotomous terms as history and mythology when reading and interpreting ancient texts. The deepest reality should not be constrained by the limits of human observations of what “actually happened.” The significance of events in Genesis 1-11 is not found in their historicity but in their theology; “not in what happened … but in why it happened.” Israelites in the ancient world did not think about events in the same way we do today. “In the ancient world they viewed reality with an eye to the metaphysical (spiritual) world, and not just through the lens of empiricism.”

The accounts in Genesis 1-11 can be affirmed as having real events as their referents, but the events (yes, they happened) find their significance in the interpretation that they are given in the biblical text. That significance is not found in their historicity but in their theology; not in what happened (or even that something did happen) but in why it happened. What was God doing? That is where the significance is to be found. Our defenses of historicity can become reductionistic if we become too focused on proving the reality of events rather than on embracing the interpretation of the theological significance being traced by the author. The text has no interest in trying to prove the events took place. They assume they did, as do we. Instead they are offering an interpretation that constitutes the divine-human message that carries the authority of the text. Events are not authoritative; the interpretation of the narrator is.

Events, in other words, were more than just history. Seeing events in this way, through a lens that included both the spiritual and the human world, means that categories we moderns might label as mythical overlapped with what we would call the real world. Ancient peoples had a different way of knowing than we moderns do. However, this does not mean their view of events was any less real. In order to understand the Genesis Flood account, we need to understand what it meant to the original audience.

To the extent that the Israelites thought in similar ways, they would not distinguish between these ways of knowing. If such is the case, stating that they consider the flood to be a real event is not as clarifying as we might hope. We cannot draw distinctions about narratives that we are interested in if they do not draw their lines in the same places we do.

We should not impose an interpretation upon the Genesis narrative of the Flood that disregards how the ancient Israelites understood what was being said. The YEC emphasis on the historicity of a global flood fails to recognize that Genesis 1-11 was not written with our scientific world in mind. Its significance lies not in what happened, but why it happened. Longman and Walton put it this way:

Even though the Bible is written for us, it is not written to us. The revelation it provides can equip us to know God, his plan, and his purposes, and therefore to participate with him in the world we face today. But it was not written with our world in mind. In its context, it is not communicated in our language; it is not addressed to our culture; it does not anticipate the questions about the world and its operations that stem from our modern situations and issues.

01/19/18

Nature, Red in Tooth & Claw, Part 1

© master1305 | stockfresh.com

In this short video, you will see two lions stalking, and then one of them killing, a zebra. The two zebras are caught by surprise; but one got away unharmed. The photographer then seems to have edited the incident to show a somewhat later confrontation between one of the lions and the unharmed zebra over the downed and dying zebra. Eventually that zebra runs off when it is apparent its partner isn’t getting up. Now let’s see how your interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis will influence your understanding of what you see in the video.

How does “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” fit into God’s plan? Tennyson wrestled with this question his 1850 poem, In Memoriam. Under the influence of geologists like Charles Lyell, there was a growing acceptance of uniformatarianism over catastrophism in Victorian England. Uniformatarianism suggested the earth’s geologic processes in the past acted with essentially the same intensity as they do in the present. Catastrophism held that the earth originated through supernatural means; while a series of catastrophic events, such as the biblical Flood, formed what geologists saw in rock formations and anthropologists found in fossils.

The acceptance of long, geologic periods of time in uniformatarianism challenged the belief originating with Bishop Ussher that the age of the earth was around 6,000 years old. See “Crumbling Pillars?” and “The Fall of the Chronology of Ussher” for more on Ussher. However, catastrophism fits with a younger view of the age of the earth. Belief in the truth of the Bible seemed to be undermined by this new geologic theory. “After the discoveries of Charles Lyell, and other geologists, discoveries which undermined the literal truth of the Bible, could one retain one’s faith in Christianity?”

A better way of stating the above dilemma would be that the discoveries of Lyell and others undermined a literal interpretation of biblical passages that had been used to support a younger age for the earth. An older earth was at odds with interpreting Genesis 1 to mean God accomplished his creative works in the space of six consecutive twenty-four hour days. A variety of approaches to interpret the creation days in Genesis 1 have been suggested, as Vern Poythress reviewed in his booklet, Christian Interpretations of Genesis 1. Some of the approaches are: the mature-creation theory, the gap theory, the intermittent-day theory, the analogical days theory and the day-age theory. See the link for a free pdf of the booklet and a description of the various approaches noted here.

Young earth creationists, like Answers in Genesis (AiG), will argue that all death, human and animal, was the result of the Fall. Writing for AiG, Simon Turpin said in Did Death of Any Kind Exist Before the Fall?, “Human physical and spiritual death, together with the death of animals, came about through the disobedience of one man.” That man, of course, was Adam. Turpin laid out biblical support for linking human and animal death as the result of the Fall by looking at nine “key passages” from Genesis 1, 2 and 3 through Revelation 21-22. Although he gave the impression that he has thoroughly researched and exegeted the issue, I have serious reservations with his discussion of the evidence and his conclusions.

For example, he gave the standard AiG argument for why the days of creation in Genesis must be understood as 24-hour days and should not be understood in any other sense. The genre of Genesis 1:1-2:3 is not poetic, according to Turpin. Genesis 1-11 is historical narrative in the same way Genesis 12-50 is: “There is no transition from non-historical to historical and it is not treated as a separate literary category from Genesis 12–50.” Additionally, “The days of Genesis 1 are six literal 24-hour days (Exodus 20:11) which occurred around 6,000–10,000 years ago.” This is the crux of the AiG argument against old earth creation and their rejection of animal death before the Fall. See “Does Anybody Really Know What Time Is?,” “What’s In A Day?” and “Genealogies In Genesis” for challenges and alternatives to an AiG position on Genesis 1 and the age of the earth.

If Genesis is interpreted through the lens of uniformitarian geology then the fossil record documents that millions of years of earth’s history are filled with death, mutations, disease, suffering, bloodshed, and violence. However, if the days of creation in Genesis 1 were only 24 hours long then there is no room for the millions of years of death, struggle, and disease to have taken place before Adam disobeyed God.

A second given reason by Turbin and AiG that Genesis 1 suggested there was no death before Adam’s Fall was “the vegetarian diet prescribed to both man and animals in Genesis 1:29-30 ruling out any carnivorous behavior before the Fall.” In his commentary on Genesis 1-4, C. John Collins pointed out that while Genesis 1:29-30 does say humans and animals were given plants to eat, “it does not say they ate nothing else.” Moreover, if we take the passage to mean a vegetarian diet for these animals, it only applies to creatures living on the land. “It says nothing about anything that lives in the water, many of which are carnivorous.”

Collins also said it was a mistake to read Genesis 2:17 as implying that physical death did not effect the creation before the Fall. He thought the focus of this death was spiritual death, addressed to Adam alone (the “you” is masculine singular); and is then appropriated by the woman in Genesis 3:2-3. “It applies to human beings and says nothing about the animals.”

From all of this we may conclude that Genesis does say that changes have come into human nature as a result of the fall—pain in childbearing, other afflictions of body and soul, death, frustration in ruling creation—but it does not follow that nonhuman nature is affected in the same way.

Turbin also cited Geerhardus Vos’s seminal book, Biblical Theology a couple of times in support of his assertions. Vos’s discussion in the passage of both quotes by Turpin was taken was from was a section where Vos addressed “the principle of death symbolized by the dissolution of the body.” Vos was countering the view that human death preceded the Fall and had nothing to say about animal death. We could go on, but my intention was to illustrate how there are alternate possible interpretations of the passages cited by Turbin and other views of the six creation days of Genesis 1 that can fit with a biblical sense of the text. The AiG way to interpret Genesis 1-11 is not the only biblically legitimate way.

Ted Davis wrote a provocatively titled article for BioLogos, “Does Death Before the Fall Make God a Liar?” He addressed the same young earth creationist (YEC) and AiG claim that animal death was a direct result of the Fall. Davis reflected on a critique of a special issue of the Christian Research Journal devoted to the question, “Where Do We Come From?” The author of the AiG article, “Compromised Creation,” said she appreciated how the articles demonstrated “the impossibility of Darwinian evolution and the bankruptcy of theistic evolution.” But she found the issue dangerously compromised since many of the authors accepted an old earth. There was a general assumption of millions of years of living and dying.

There can be no argument that the fossil record is a graveyard full of evidence of disease, violence, carnivory, suffering, and death. To assume (as many authors implicitly do in this journal) that such miseries were all part of God’s “very good” creation (so named by God in Genesis 1:31) is to impugn God’s character. If God had called a world already full of bloodshed and death “very good,” then He either had a cruel sense of irony or didn’t know what He was talking about, or worse, He is a liar.

Davis pointed to Psalm 104, which praises God for the many wonders in creation; including the young lions who “roar for their prey, seeking their food from God.” There is the sea, which teams with innumerable creatures, both small and great. “These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things” (Psalm 104:27-28). Davis said he doesn’t see how to reconcile this Psalm with YEC theodicy.

In A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, David Snoke said if you conceded that the Bible teaches that animals died before the Fall, many of the objections to an old earth fade away. “The whole point of an old-earth view is to say that things are as they appear, and the earth is full of fossils and fossil matter such as coral and limestone.” He thought that from a scientific standpoint, either the earth was old, or simply appeared old. However, there are theological problems in the mature creation or appearance of age view for both science and YEC/AiG.

In Redeeming Science (pp. 116ff; a pdf copy is linked here) Vern Poythress noted several different objections to the appearance of age view. First, a mature creation view implies that God has deceived us. Second, it makes scientific investigation illegitimate. Thirdly, from an AiG perspective, it would falsely imply that death preceded the Fall. Lastly, again causing problems for the YEC and AiG understanding of the Flood, it would undermine their understanding of the biblical teaching of Noah’s flood.

Dr. Snoke presented what he saw as two valid interpretive options on the age of the earth from a scientific viewpoint, meaning he accepted that scientific evidence in both would suggest an old earth. Vern Poythress then showed how a consistent mature creation view of creation could lead into both theological and scientific problems for a young earth that only give the appearance of being old.

So it seems the “nature, red in tooth and claw” illustrated in the opening video can fit within an interpretation of Genesis 1 consistent with an old earth view. Attempting to combine the origins of human and animal death in the manner done by YEC and AiG is both scientifically and theologically invalid. Look for more discussion on this issue in Part 2 of this article. For more articles on creation in the Bible, see the link “Genesis & Creation.”

12/8/17

Room for Differences on Creation

© michaeljayfoto

Tim Keller stepped down as the Senior Pastor for Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City in July of 2017. Redeemer also split into multiple congregations, “actualizing our long-stated plan of shifting from being a single large church with multiple congregations to becoming a family of smaller churches.” Keller said his new role would be as a teacher and trainer for the next generation of leaders and pastors within the Redeemer family of churches. “The gospel is a living force, always sending and giving—and as I am sent in a new way now, so is every member of Redeemer, to love and serve this great city.” And yet he has been smeared as having such a low view of Scripture and creation, “that he goes out of his way to promote the false doctrine of theistic evolution.”

The above is the stated opinion of E.S. Williams in “Keller’s false gospel” on The New Calvinists website. Williams has also written a book titled The New Calvinists, which critiques Keller and others. Williams claims in the subtitle of his book these pastors are changing the gospel. In another article on The New Calvinists bashing Keller (there are several), “Keller’s theistic evolution,” Williams distorts Keller’s position by saying he believes the Bible must be made to conform to the ‘truth’ of science. “Keller does this by asserting [in The Reason for God] that the first chapter of Genesis is a poem.” He is certainly not the only critical source of Keller on his understanding of Genesis one and whether theistic evolution can be affirmed by those with a high view of Scripture.

Ken Ham, the founder of Answers in Genesis (AiG), has also been critical Tim Keller. He said: “It is so sad to see a great Bible teacher like Tim Keller promote belief in evolution to the church.” Ham contends Keller and others have misunderstood what he and Answers in Genesis are saying in relation to the loss of biblical authority. According to Ham, this is the result of “contributing to undermining the authority of the Word of God by accommodating man’s ideas of evolution or millions of years into Genesis.” He believes there has been “an increasing generational loss of Biblical authority because so many in the church have opened the door to compromise beginning in Genesis.”

Within a document, “Where Do We Draw the Line?,” AiG said it is made up of “Christians who unite to defend the authority of the Bible in today’s secular culture.” That is what they say they are about—“the authority of the Bible, often in Genesis.” An example of how the issue of Biblical authority is understood by AiG has to do with the age of the earth.

For example, the secular world has been teaching that the earth is billions of years old. The Bible, based on genealogies recorded throughout the Scriptures and the context of the Hebrew word yom (day) in Genesis 1, reveal that the earth is thousands of years old. So, this question becomes a biblical authority issue. Is one going to trust a perfect God who created all things (Genesis 1:1), has always been there (Revelation 22:13), knows all things (Colossians 2:1–3), and cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18), or trust imperfect and fallible humankind who was not there and speculates on the past?

In the original AiG article, you can see links that elaborate their understanding of “genealogies,” the “context” of the Hebrew word yom (day), and whether the earth is “thousands of years old.” There is also a chart that lists “a sampling of biblical authority topics” such as the age of the earth, evolution and whether or not Noah’s flood was global or local as issues of biblical authority. AiG said the Bible does not teach the earth is millions of years old; that man was specially created from dust and the woman from the man. An evolutionary worldview says humanity came from an ape-like ancestor. And Genesis 6-8 affirms the Flood was global, covering the highest mountain by over 15 cubits. “Those appealing to a local Flood trust secular authorities who say that the rock layers are evidence of millions of years instead of mostly Noah’s Flood sediment.”

Additional examples of topics on biblical authority in the chart include the Trinity and racism. The article went on the say: “Basically, AiG is involved when any issue impacts the authority of Scripture—especially when human claims run counter to what God teaches.” What seems clear is that AiG’s position is that any Christian seeking to affirm the authority of Scripture necessarily has to acknowledge an understanding of Genesis that aligns with its own position. AiG believes the age of the earth is in the neighborhood of thousands, not millions, of years; that there was a global flood covering the highest existing mountains of the time of Noah; and that humans were specially created out of dust. Tim Keller and other Christians who allow for or teach any views that do not agree with this understanding of Genesis are therefore undermining the authority of the word of God.

The weight given to these positions is seen clearly in the AiG Statement of Faith, last updated on August 10, 2015. In order to preserve the function and integrity of the ministry “in its mission to proclaim the absolute truth and authority of Scripture,” employees and volunteers should abide and agree to the AiG Statement of Faith. Board members for the AiG ministry must hold to the following six tenets:

  • Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation, spanning approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ.
  • The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of creation.
  • The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.
  • The gap theory has no basis in Scripture.
  • The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into secular and religious, is rejected.
  • The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into secular and religious, is rejected.

While Ham and AiG does not go as far as E.S. Williams in claiming Keller and others are promoting a false gospel, Ham and AiG do seem to believe that if Keller and others disagree with the AiG understanding of Genesis on creation, the age of the earth, and whether the Noachian Flood was local or global, they have a low view of Scripture. A recent origin for humans and creation (approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ), six 24 hour days for creation, and a global, Noachian Flood are non-negotiable beliefs about creation, according to AiG.

The Gospel Coalition (TGC), an evangelical ministry founded by Tim Keller and Don Carson, posted a video discussion between Tim Keller, Ligon Duncan and Russell Moore on what is necessary to be believed; what are the non-negotiable beliefs about creation. Both Duncan and Moore are council members for TGC.

Keller led off the dialogue on the essentials of what has to be believed about the Bible when talking to nonbelievers. Keller said the relationship of God to the creation—the Creator/creation distinction—should be stressed. He said nonbelievers may want to talk about creation as a religion versus science battle, but he suggested to not go there. “The relationship of creation to evolution isn’t the heart.” There are at least four, five or six orthodox Christian views of evolution, according to Keller. “But let’s not go there at first.”

Duncan said he’d want to tell the skeptical, intelligent unbeliever that Christianity and science are not in conflict. Protestant Christianity laid the philosophical foundation for the rise of science.

Within the church, Duncan thought the essentials or boundaries of what we have to agree on in order to recognize each other as orthodox are: creation ex nihilo, the goodness of creation and the special creation of Adam and Eve. By creation ex nihilo, Duncan meant there is a Creator-creature distinction—God was the Cause of everything else. Adam and Eve have to be acknowledged as the fountainhead of humanity to support the federal headship of Adam to have the Adam-Christ parallel for the gospel.

Keller said he would want to talk first about the first two points, the Creator-creature distinction and the goodness of creation, with a nonbeliever. With a Christian, he said he would discuss Adam and Eve, saying there are a lot of different understandings about how old the earth is, what the days are in Genesis 1, and to what degree evolution was a part of how God created things. “But where I would stop is, with Adam and Eve.” Keller said there had to be an actual Adam and Eve, otherwise he doesn’t understand how the Pauline view of salvation in Romans 5 works.

He acknowledged that the consensus, even among Christian scientists, is that all human beings were not genetically related to a human couple. It had to be a little group of people somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. “But when I read the text … it sure looks like it’s saying that God created Adam and Eve. And he didn’t just adopt … a human-like being and put in the image of God.” Keller said the text said he created them out of the dust of the ground. He thought he had to let his reading of the text correct his understanding of the sciences.

 Science is a way of telling me truth. And the Scripture is a way of telling me truth. But if they are clashing, even though I know the science might show me I’m reading the Scripture wrong, and that has happened in the past, where the science came in and said “Are you really … does the Bible really teach that the sun revolves around the earth? So it’s possible for the science to make you ask, “Did you read the text right?” But if you go back and read the text and you come to your conclusion, that as far as you can say before God “I’m trying my best to read this as I think what the Scripture says.” Right now it says to me, … and everyone came from Adam and Eve and they were special creations. And so even though I don’t have an answer to my science friends, that’s where I stand.

I don’t think Tim Keller compromised biblical authority in what he said; nor did he preach a false gospel. I do see him saying belief in the authority of the Bible has room for differences on how to interpret Genesis 1 and whether the age of the earth is 6,000 years. It may even have room for some form of evolution. AiG and E.S. Williams vehemently deny this possibility. AiG has linked a denial of evolution, a localized flood, and an age for the earth and creation around 6,000 years with the Trinity and racism as key issues of biblical authority. So it doesn’t seem they would stand with Keller or any other Christian—which includes me—who won’t affirm their understanding of Genesis. For more articles on creation in the Bible, see the link “Genesis & Creation.”

11/17/17

Evolutionary Wars

credit: Steve Cardino, from “The Lie: Evolution”

The cartoon image here portrays a war between Humanism and Christianity, where Humanism is founded on evolution and Satan, while Christianity is founded on creation and Christ. The castle of Christianity is starting to collapse as the castle of Humanism systematically attacks the rock of its foundation in the cartoon, creation. The Christian guns are ineffectively aimed either nowhere or at the balloons (issues) of humanism instead of it evolutionary foundation. The message it sends is clear: Christianity is in danger of losing the cultural war with Humanism because it isn’t attacking the Satanic foundation it’s based on, evolution.

The cartoon originally appeared in a 1987 book by Ken Ham titled: The Lie: Evolution. In “Creation, Culture Wars, and the Search for Certainty,” Ted Davis said it has been the “signature icon” for Answers in Genesis (AiG), an organization founded by Ken Ham. Over time the image has been modified, as it reflected the ‘evolution’ of Ham’s and AiG’s thought. “Over time, I began to emphasize that believing in the creation account in Genesis means accepting God’s Word as the ultimate authority, and believing in the secular idea of evolution is to accept man’s word as the ultimate authority.”

In a 2002 version of the cartoon, the castle of Christianity was represented as being founded on six literal creation days equaling God’s authority, versus the millions of years equally man’s authority for the foundation of the humanism castle. In 2010, the foundations were “no longer creation vs. evolution or six days vs. millions of years, but ‘autonomous human reasoning”’ vs. ‘revelation/God’s word.’” See “Creation and Culture Wars” for the images.

Although Ham’s signature icon is still very much alive, it has evolved into a more sophisticated new species that is better adapted to twenty-first century culture wars, in which biblical faith is increasingly seen as contrary to science and reason. Ironically, Ham’s ministry itself is a primary cause of that perception.

Ted Davis noted how Ken Ham echoes the belief of William Jennings Bryan in the early twentieth century, that evolution inevitably undermines Christian faith. Like Ham, Bryan represented his thought in a cartoon. He saw evolution as causing modernism and leading to “the progressive elimination of the vital truths of the bible.” Bryan’s cartoon has three modernists, a student, a minister and a scientist descending a staircase that represents a slippery slope stemming from “the progressive elimination of the vital truths of the bible.” The descent starts with evolution and ends with the scientist stepping from Agnosticism to Atheism.

credit: original cartoon by Ernest James Pace; photograph by Ted Davis

The “Descent of the Modernists” cartoon appeared originally in Bryan’s 1924 book, Seven Questions in Dispute, published the year before his death, which took place days after his participation in the infamous Scope Trial. See “’Conflict Between Science and Religion’” and “No Contest; No Victory” for more on Bryan.

Despite the parallels in their thinking about creationism and the culture, Davis noted that Henry Morris, not Bryan, had the greater influence on Ham’s thought. AiG refers to the late Henry Morris as ‘the father’ of the modern creationist movement. His book, The Genesis Flood (1961), was the beginning of the revival of creationist thought that faded from the church with the passing of Bryan and the retreat of fundamentalism from cultural engagement after the Scopes Trial. Davis noted that in another book by Morris, The Troubled Waters of Evolution (1974), he argued evolutionary thought could be traced back beyond the “evolutionary pantheists” of the ancient Greco-Roman world. True as far as that statement goes, Davis noted where “Darwin’s theory was immensely more sophisticated and far more plausible than any ancient theory—but Morris goes much further.”

Morris traced the origins of evolutionary thought back through all the religions of the world other than Christianity, Judaism and Islam. These are excluded because they are based on Genesis. All other religions are “evolutionary” religions, including: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Atheism and ‘liberal Christianity.’ He said that evolution itself is a religion. He does not mean Darwinian evolution, but belief in the idea that all things have arisen by innate processes in the universe: the belief that the universe had no beginning; that it is eternal. You can watch a YouTube video series of a talk Morris gave titled “The Troubled Waters of Evolution.” It is in five parts. If you watch Part 1, notice the parallels between the metaphor Morris uses of the “fruit tree” of evolution producing harmful philosophies and evil practices the humanistic “balloons” in Ken Ham’s cartoon.

But Morris goes back even further in his book, The Troubled Waters of Evolution, according to Davis. He attributes the origins of evolution with Nimrod and the Tower of Babel in Genesis 10:8-10. According to Morris, it was part of the pantheistic polytheism of Babel Connected with astrology, idolatry, and the worship of fallen angels. “It is therefore a reasonable deduction, even though hardly capable of proof, that the entire monstrous complex [of evolution] was revealed to Nimrod at Babel by demonic influences, perhaps by Satan himself.” Therefore, evolution is “the world-view with which the whole world has been deceived.”

That’s why the foundation of Ham’s humanism castle connects evolution with Satan—and why evolution gets blamed for social ills that plagued us long before Darwin was born and would still be prevalent today even if Darwin had never existed. Evolution becomes the scapegoat for many sinful behaviors, to such an extent that it is virtually equated with sin itself, or even seen as inherently Satanic. This is a profoundly unhelpful way of approaching historical and cultural aspects of evolution, and it fails entirely to explain why many people who utterly reject evolution commit the very sins that Ham connects with belief in evolution.

Despite the revisions over time to the AiG “signature icon,” its foundations have actually changed very little. For AiG, Christianity sits on the foundation of “Creation;” which means “6  (24 hour) Days” for creation is equivalent to God’s authority; and only this interpretation is true “Revelation in God’s Word.” On the other hand, Humanism sits on the foundation of “Evolution;” which wrongly believes in “millions of years” for creation according to human authority; making “human reason autonomous” from the revelation of God’s Word. In other words, respect for the authority of God’s Word requires an agreement with the AiG view of creation in six 24 hour days—and its companion doctrines of 6,000 years since the creation and a global Noachian Flood (See the AiG Statement of Faith). In contrast, Humanism and its issues rest on autonomous reason, manifested in allowing millions of years for creation and allowing evolution rather than creation to explain how the universe and humanity came into being.

Lastly, the warfare metaphor in the AiG “signature icon” was actually first used by John William Draper and Andrew Dickinson White in their books on the perceived conflict or “war” between science and religion at the end of the 19th century. Draper wrote History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874) and White wrote History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). In the Preface of his book, Draper seemed to set conflict between religion and science on a foundation that was eerily similar to the 2010 AiG cartoon. “The history of Science is … a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.”

Warfare or conflict rhetoric tempts us to see dichotomy where there may not be one. And when Christians use it to compare their understanding of a Biblical passage like Genesis 1 to alternative interpretations by other Christians (who also affirm the authority of Scripture), they need to be aware of the danger of imputing the rightful authority of Scripture onto their interpretation of the Biblical passage in question. It seems to me that is what has happened with Henry Morris and AiG.

08/26/16

Crumbling Pillars?

35367610 - ruin of temple e (temple of castor and pollux) in the archeological park of selinunte in southern sicily
© Andreas Metz | 123rf.com

On July 7, 2016, the Ark Encounter, a “life-sized Noah’s Ark experience” was opened to the public. The centerpiece of the Answers in Genesis “theme park” is a 510-foot long replica of Noah’s Ark, standing over 50 feet tall. The park has a petting zoo, daily animal shows, zip lines, live entertainment and a 1,500-seat restaurant. One of its exhibits shows children living alongside dinosaurs. Future phases seek to build the Tower of Babel and a building that will house “a walk through Biblical history.” Admission is $40 for adults and $28 for children. Parking costs an additional $10. Oh, and the total cost of the project was $100 million.

There is a ready-made market for the Ark Encounter. An ABC News poll in 2004 found that 60% of Americans believed that the biblical story of Noah was literally true. When sorted by faith groups, 44% of Catholics thought the biblical story of Noah was literally true; and 87% of evangelical Protestants thought it was literally true. Only 29% with no religious affiliation thought it was literally true. The problem is: “The scientific and historical evidence is now clear: there has never been a global flood that covered the entire earth, nor do all modern animals and humans descend from the passengers of a single vessel.”

The two main pillars of a young earth creationist understanding of the Bible are the creation of the earth 6,000 years ago and a global flood. They hang together to uphold young earth creationism (YEC). The “apparent” geological evidence for an age of the earth far beyond 6,000 years is explained by the cataclysmic destruction from a global flood. The layers of sedimentary rock from around the world; the extinction of multiple kinds of animals—including the dinosaurs and others—is explained by the Biblical account of Noah’s Flood.

In another article, I looked at how the argument for a young earth rests on the false assumption that a chronology for the age of the earth can be derived from the Biblical genealogies. See “The Fall of the Chronology of Ussher” for more on this issue. Here we discover there are cracks in the other pillar—the assertion of a global flood.

Two Christian geologists, Gregg Davidson and Ken Wolgemuth questioned whether Noah’s Flood could account for the earth’s complex geology in their essay: “Biblical and Scientific Shortcomings of Flood Geology.”

To explain the vast thicknesses and incredible complexity of the earth’s sedimentary deposits within a short history, it is argued that the Flood must have been both global and violent. Flood Geology is thus synonymous with belief in a young earth. It is our conviction that this position is unreasonable from both a biblical and scientific perspective.

One of the challenges raised by Davidson and Woglemuth has to do with salt deposits like those found in the Gulf of Mexico. Salt deposits form when water is evaporated. “During evaporation, the concentration of dissolved ions increases until the water cannot hold the salt in solution anymore and mineral salt begins to form.” The problem is these salt deposits are between layers of sediment that the global flood was supposed to have deposited. “ A single, flood cannot be called upon to explain both the salt and the overlying sediment.”

Another challenge is the Grand Canyon, with its alternating layers of limestone, sandstone and shale. The sequence defies any reasonable attempt to explain it by a single flood. However, if the deposits were formed at different times under varying stages of sea levels, it is very easy to explain them. “If explained with a single catastrophic flood that abided by God’s natural laws of physics and chemistry, logic must be stretched beyond the breaking point.” And the multiple layers of limestone found in the Grand Canyon are never found in flood deposits.

Then there is the fossil record. If a massive flood were responsible for the fossil record, we should expect to see life forms from every living “kind” mixed together. Mammoths should be mixed in with triceratops; pterodactyls with sparrows. Ferns and meadow flowers should be found along with trilobites and whales. But what we see is quite different.

There is an orderly sequence where trilobites only occur in very old rocks, dinosaurs in later beds, and mammoths in still later layers. Organisms like flowers and ferns are present together in more recent deposits, but only ferns with no flowers are found in older deposits.

There is a new book, The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth, which looks specifically at the geology of canyon rocks and landforms in the light of the claims of flood geologists. Two of the eleven contributors are Davidson and Woglemuth. In “Flood Geology and the Grand Canyon” four contributors from the book use explanations and illustrations from their book to challenge five kinds of evidence in the Grand Canyon that flood geologists say support a global flood.

They used a graphic from Answers in Genesis (here) that summarizes these five different “evidences,” and then gave a synopsis of where they specifically refuted these flood geology claims in The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth. In the conclusion to their article, the authors said the geology of the Grand Canyon is known fairly well after nearly 150 years of study. The geological evidence “is overwhelmingly inconsistent with flood geology.” The rocks reveal multiple episodes of deposition and intervening periods of erosion. The fossil evidence does not reflect the rapid burial of sea animals and small land animals out of the deep, turbulent water hypothesized as occurring with a global flood. “Flood geologists have failed to conceive a physical model for catastrophic formation that is consistent with the real geology of the Grand Canyon.”

Another book by two Christian geologists, The Bible, Rocks and Time, was written with the intent to convince readers on biblical and geological grounds “of the vast antiquity of this amazing planet that is our God-given home.” Along the way they point out the flaws of young earth creationism.

Although the issue of Earth’s antiquity may seem to be little more than an interesting intellectual exercise that has little immediate bearing on one’s life, we point out that this issue can have profound spiritual consequences for the church of Jesus Christ, the individual Christian and the nonbeliever as well.

An article by Ted Davis on BioLogos, “The Bible, Rocks and Time: Christians and an Old Earth,” quoted two excerpts from the book. One “snip” noted where a growing number of orthodox evangelical Christian writers have accepted and accommodated their thinking “to the mounting evidence for terrestrial antiquity.” Linked there was an article originally written by Davis Young, one of the authors of The Bible, Rocks and Time. The article, “Scripture in the Hands of Geologists (Part Two),” was originally published in the Westminster Theological Journal. Part Two of Young’s article surveyed the concordist tradition when interpreting the early chapters of Genesis by Christian geologists. Young and Stearley were quoted as saying in The Bible, Rocks and Time:

A growing number of orthodox evangelical Christian writers, including geologists, preachers, biblical scholars and theologians, accepted and accommodated their thinking to the mounting evidence for terrestrial antiquity. In response, they began to develop a variety of strategies purporting to show how the biblical data were consistent with the findings of geology. . . . Having been encouraged to look afresh at the biblical creation accounts, experts in the original languages became persuaded that there is no conflict between the data of nature and the teaching of Scripture. These individuals continued to insist on the inspiration of the Bible and refused to call Genesis a myth in order to explain difficulties. It was, however, accepted that the traditional exegesis of Genesis 1 was not the only one that adequately satisfied the biblical data.

The two pillars of a YEC view of Genesis pit the two books of God’s revelation, Scripture and Nature, God’s Word and God’s Works against one another. As a consequence, they have weakened and not strengthened His revelation in both books. This “two books theology” was an essential foundation for the rise of modern science. As Mark Mann said, “Christians need to ‘read’ Scripture and Creation together in order to understand the fullness of God’s Word and truth for us today.” In Redeeming Science, Vern Poythress pointed out that scientific laws are what can be known about God in the things that have been made. “Since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, such as his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived (Romans 1:20).”

In reality, what people call “scientific law” is divine. We are speaking of God himself and his revelation of himself through his governance of the world. Scientists must believe in scientific law in order to carry out their work. When we analyze what this scientific law really is, we find that scientists are constantly confronted with God himself, the Trinitarian God, and are constantly depending on who he is and what he does in conformity with his divine nature. In thinking about law, scientists are thinking God’s thoughts after him. (Redeeming Science, pp. 26-27)

For more articles on creation in the Bible, see the link “Genesis & Creation.”